Two Halves Make a Whole
by skywalkersamidala
Summary: Anakin is the single dad of Luke. Padme is the single mom of Leia. Luke and Leia meet in kindergarten and become best friends. The rest is history. (Modern AU)
1. Chapter 1

**Please excuse the cheesy title I've just been calling this "the single parents AU" in my head for weeks and I had to scramble to come up with a title before posting lmao anyway here are a few quick preliminary notes:**

 **1\. As always, I have the whole thing written already so updates should be pretty speedy assuming I don't end up overediting the remaining chapters. This fic is gonna be pretty short n sweet for a multichapter! As of right now there's only 8 chapters + epilogue, most of which are about the same length as this chapter. That actually sounds like kind of a lot of chapters now that I'm saying it, but I swear it doesn't feel like a long fic haha**

 **2\. There's going to be one (1) sex scene later on, so I'll be changing the rating when we get there. But for right now, everything is G-rated extreme fluff, aka my specialty :D**

 **3\. I have not interacted with any kindergartners in QUITE some time, so please let me know if anything seems off about my portrayal of them so I can fix it.**

 **4\. Padme and Leia are Jewish in this story but I myself am not Jewish, so please let me know if anything seems off about my portrayal of them so i can fix it.**

 **ANYWAY without further ado, here's the first chapter!**

* * *

"Daddy, I wanna go home."

Anakin looked down in surprise and saw that Luke was gazing up at him with a frown on his face. "Home? It's your first day of kindergarten, Luke. You've been looking forward to it for weeks," Anakin reminded him; he'd spent the last two weeks listening to Luke constantly prattling on about how excited he was for school to start.

But now, it seemed, the five-year-old was having second thoughts. "I wanna go home," he repeated, sounding close to tears.

That, combined with the nervous glance Luke threw in the direction of all the kids heading towards the school and the way he tightened his grip on Anakin's hand, clued Anakin in as to what the problem was. He crouched down so they were at eye level and smiled encouragingly at his son, taking his other hand too. "There's nothing to be scared of," he said soothingly. "All the other kids are going to be so nice. You'll make friends right away, I know you will."

"What if they don't like me?" Luke said anxiously.

Anakin squeezed his hands. "Of course they'll like you."

"What if no one wants to play with me at recess?"

"They will, I promise," Anakin said again, racking his brains to think of something else he could say to make Luke feel better. Then inspiration struck: "When I pick you up this afternoon, we'll go out for ice cream to celebrate your first day. How does that sound?"

That did the trick, as Anakin knew it would. Luke's frown immediately turned into a grin. "Okay!"

Anakin chuckled and kissed him on the forehead. "All right, then. Are you ready to go over there now?"

Luke darted another apprehensive glance towards the school, but then he nodded. Anakin straightened up and led him from their car over to the schoolyard, which was packed with kids and parents trying to locate the correct class of the many gathered outside the building. Anakin knew the kindergarten classrooms were on the south end of the building, so he wandered over in that direction with Luke clinging to his hand and trotting to keep up with his much longer legs.

The kids were definitely getting smaller, and at last they were surrounded by some who appeared to be kindergarten age. Anakin scanned the crowd, trying to figure out which adult was the teacher. He gave up after a moment or two and took a step towards a nearby woman whose back was to him. "Excuse me," Anakin said. "Is this Mr. Organa's class?"

The woman turned around, and Anakin was pretty sure his heart stopped beating then and there. She was without a doubt the most beautiful human being he had ever seen in his entire life. That is, if she even _was_ a human being and not some sort of angel or something. Her brown hair was pulled back from her face in a professional-looking bun (her blouse and skirt were professional-looking also) and she had warm brown eyes—and, apparently, a dazzling smile, which she bestowed upon him a second later.

"Yes, that's him over there," she said, pointing towards a dark-haired man a slight ways away.

It took Anakin several seconds to remember what he had even asked her in the first place. Oh, Mr. Organa. Right. "Oh. Okay. Um, th-thank you," he stammered, feeling his face heating up a little; hopefully it wasn't noticeable.

She smiled again and gave him a polite nod, and after another moment Anakin managed to snap himself out of it and tug Luke over towards Mr. Organa. He was still more than a little shaken when they got there, but he did his best to get ahold of himself as he said, "Excuse me, Mr. Organa?"

The man looked over and smiled so kindly that Anakin's nervousness about what Luke's teacher would be like immediately eased up. "Yes, that's me," Mr. Organa said. He directed his smile down towards Luke. "Are you in my class?"

Luke nodded and pressed himself closer against Anakin's leg. Anakin tried to nudge him forward a little bit. "Why don't you introduce yourself?" he prodded.

"I'm Luke," the boy said in a small voice.

Mr. Organa crouched down and held his hand out for Luke to shake, which he did after a moment's hesitation. "It's very nice to meet you, Luke. I'm Mr. Organa," he said. "I'm excited to have you in my class this year. I know we're going to have lots of fun together."

Luke smiled shyly at him, and Mr. Organa stood back up to shake Anakin's hand. "I'm Anakin Skywalker, Luke's dad," he said. "It's nice to meet you."

"You too, Mr. Skywalker. Luke will be in very good hands with me, I promise," Mr. Organa added.

"Oh, I wasn't—uh, I didn't doubt that would be the case," Anakin said, a little flustered that Mr. Organa had picked up on his worries so easily.

Mr. Organa chuckled. "I've taught kindergarten for enough years to know that the parents are always more nervous than the kids on the first day."

Anakin joined in his laughter, albeit rather sheepishly. They made small talk for another minute before Mr. Organa moved on to greet some more of Luke's classmates. Anakin felt as if he should prompt Luke to go introduce himself to some of the other kids, but he couldn't bring himself to let go of his son's hand quite yet.

The warning bell rang soon afterwards and the kids started saying goodbye to their parents and lining up to go inside. Anakin knelt down and pulled Luke in for a fierce hug, furiously blinking back tears. "Daddy, you're squishing me," Luke complained.

"Sorry," Anakin said, reluctantly letting go of him. He gave him what he hoped was an encouraging smile. "Good luck today, Luke. You're going to love kindergarten. You better remember every single thing that happens so you can tell me all about it after school, all right?"

"Okay," Luke said dutifully. Then he squinted at Anakin. "Are you crying?"

Anakin blinked rapidly several more times. "No," he lied. If Luke was already nervous about school, the last thing he needed was to see his own father crying at the prospect of sending him inside the building.

Anakin hugged him again, partly to soothe Luke and partly to soothe himself. "Don't go," Luke said in a wobbly voice.

Anakin squeezed him tighter and planted a kiss on his cheek. "I have to, buddy. I already went to kindergarten a long time ago, so they won't let me back in," he joked, and to his relief, Luke giggled, seeming to cheer up a little. "You're going to have so much fun today. By the time I get here to pick you up this afternoon you won't even want to go home anymore." Anakin gave him another kiss. "I love you."

"I love you too."

At last Anakin forced himself to relinquish his son, and Luke scampered off to join his classmates. The boy in front of him in line immediately turned around to say hello, and Anakin watched with a smile on his face as Luke began chattering away to him, all nerves seemingly forgotten. He'd be fine.

But Anakin didn't think _he_ would be. The kids went inside a minute later, and Anakin trudged back to his car with a lump in his throat. Logically, he knew this was hardly any different than sending Luke off to preschool, or even daycare or Shmi's house or leaving him at home with a babysitter, but it felt so much more momentous than that. He was officially in real public school now. Before Anakin knew it, he'd be graduating high school. How had the time passed so quickly?

Anakin was so busy wiping his eyes and wallowing in these morose thoughts that he didn't notice the person standing in front of him until he crashed into them. "Oh! I'm so sorry, I didn't see you there," he said awkwardly.

A split second later, he realized it was the beautiful woman from the schoolyard and his stomach did a backflip. "No worries," she assured him with a smile, though Anakin thought her eyes looked a little red as well. "It's my fault for stopping in the middle of the sidewalk." She held up her phone as if to say that she'd gotten a text which had prompted her sudden halt.

Anakin just smiled back, wanting to continue the conversation but unsure of what to say. Luckily, the woman had him covered. She rummaged around in her purse, pulled out a package of tissues, and offered one to him with a wry smile. "Thanks," Anakin said, chuckling. He took it and wiped his eyes, and the woman took out a second tissue and did the same.

"Is this your first kid?" she asked.

Anakin nodded. "My only kid, actually."

"Me too. My sister said it gets easier after the first day, but I don't see how it could," the woman replied, sighing. "And she's a stay-at-home mom, too, so I really don't know how she does it. The fact that I have to be at work in fifteen minutes is the only thing keeping me together at all right now."

"I know," Anakin agreed. "Well, we only have…" He checked his watch. "Less than seven hours before we can see them again."

"I'm counting down the seconds," the woman said, laughing. "Speaking of work, I should head over there now, I guess. Good luck coping for the next less than seven hours."

"You too."

Anakin stood and watched her walk away for a long minute before coming to his senses, scolding himself that he was going to be late for work, and hurrying the rest of the distance towards his car. But as soon as he was safely inside, he leaned back against the seat and started to cry. How was it possible that Luke was starting kindergarten already? Luke, his little baby? Anakin could swear he'd only been born yesterday. It was like he'd blinked and suddenly Luke had grown up. He was half afraid that if he blinked again, he'd be dropping him off at college instead of kindergarten.

College. How the hell was Anakin ever going to be able to handle sending Luke to college if he was in this much of a state at the prospect of being separated from him for less than seven hours? The thought set off a fresh wave of tears, which was interrupted a few minutes later by his cell phone buzzing.

Anakin took several deep breaths and tried to compose himself, though he was unable to entirely keep a wobble out of his voice when he picked up the phone and said, "Hello?"

"Anakin, where are you?" It was Obi-Wan Kenobi, his friend and coworker. "You were supposed to be here ten minutes ago, and you _know_ Yoda threatened to fire you if you were late one more time."

"It's been a hard morning, okay?" Anakin said, sniffling. "Besides, he didn't really mean it, he was just trying to scare me into being on time."

"Well, clearly it didn't work," Obi-Wan muttered. "If he comes over here and sees you're gone, I'll tell him you're having car trouble. But I'm not covering for you again."

He'd said that the last dozen times. "'Kay. Thanks. I'll be there in a minute."

"You'd better be."

As he drove to work, Anakin tried to distract himself from Luke, and his mind landed on the beautiful woman instead. But he suddenly realized in disappointment that if she was the mother of a kindergartener, in all likelihood she was also married. After all, their town was pretty much as suburban as you could get, filled with traditional nuclear families; Anakin had been the only single parent in Luke's entire preschool class, so he didn't see why it wouldn't be the same for his kindergarten class too.

Anakin slouched into the office in a miserable mood, and he flopped down at his desk with a loud sigh. "Only twenty minutes late today," Ahsoka said, snickering. "That's your best yet."

"And Yoda didn't even notice," Obi-Wan added. "Truly a new record."

"Shut up," Anakin grumbled as he stuffed his bag under the desk and booted up his computer.

Their faces both softened, probably because Anakin hadn't done a very good job of disguising the fact that he'd been crying before he got out of the car. "So how was the first day of school?" Obi-Wan asked.

"I can't believe he's in kindergarten already," Anakin murmured, gazing nostalgically at the picture of newborn Luke on his desk. Luke was all over his working space: photos covering every free inch of his desk, his computer background, his phone background, and the homemade calendar Shmi had given him the previous Christmas with a different family picture for every month.

Ahsoka rolled her chair over so she could pat him on the back. "But doesn't parenting get even more fun as he gets older?" she said. "No more crying and diapers and baby stuff. And you'll be able to actually do things together aside from, like, playing with toys."

"But I _liked_ the baby stuff," Anakin said. "He needed me then. Soon enough he'll be going to college and moving out and he'll never talk to me again."

"What exactly are you planning on doing to make him never talk to you again as an adult?" Obi-Wan said. "It's only kindergarten. You've still got twelve more years before college."

"Yeah, well, five passed in the blink of an eye."

"Don't stress about the future. Just enjoy the present," Ahsoka said wisely. "Think about how close you and your mom still are. Sure, Luke will be more independent someday, but he won't love you any less."

"Actually, he'll love you even _more_ once he's old enough to recognize how great a dad you are and how lucky he is to have you," Obi-Wan said.

Anakin felt a lump form in his throat yet again, and he smiled at the other two. "Thanks, guys. That actually kinda helped. A little."

"Hey, now that Luke's in real school and you'll be starting to have more time to yourself, you know what you need?" Ahsoka asked mischievously a few minutes later.

"What?"

"To get laid."

Anakin groaned loudly, face flaming. "Shut _up,_ Snips. God, I wish you and Riyo would break up so you'd stop trying to matchmake me."

"Hey!"

"All right, fine, I take it back, you guys are perfect for each other and I hope you get married someday," Anakin said. "I'm just saying, you weren't at all interested in busybodying into my love life until after _you_ got a girlfriend yourself."

"I guess now that _my_ love life's all set I have enough time and energy to spend busybodying into other people's," Ahsoka said cheerfully. "Also, am I _really_ busybodying into your love life if you don't even have a love life for me to busybody into?"

"Busybody isn't a verb," Obi-Wan interjected as Anakin spluttered indignantly.

"Seriously, though, you keep saying you don't want to start dating again until Luke's older, but how much older is older?" Ahsoka asked. "I mean, wouldn't it be _easier_ to date when he's young? That way he'll just blindly love the person instead of getting all sulky and stuff like he would if he was a teenager."

"But he'll also be way more upset when the person vanishes from his life after we break up," Anakin pointed out. "He'll have an easier time understanding and adjusting to the breakup when he's older."

"Oh. True. I guess you'll just have to meet your soulmate on the first try, then."

Anakin snorted. "Yeah, because that's likely."

* * *

"For the last time, I'm not interested in dating right now," Padmé said exasperatedly.

"Oh, come on, Padmé, I'm sure you'd be fielding a million different guys as soon as you put yourself out there," said Satine. "You're a young, intelligent, successful, beautiful woman—"

"—with a five-year-old daughter," Padmé interrupted. "Not sure if you're aware, but that's a pretty big turnoff for most guys."

" _Most._ Not all."

"So you just don't tell him at first," Sabé said, shrugging. "Wait until he's good and in love with you, and then you break the news and by then he'll love you so much that he won't freak out and dump you."

"What, just _lie_ about a huge part of my life for months? No way," Padmé said with a frown. "Leia is my _daughter,_ not some secret I'm ashamed of."

"Of course," Satine said quickly. "But that doesn't mean you have to advertise her existence on your Tinder profile."

"I'm _not_ making a Tinder profile, and I'm not lying about Leia."

" _I'm_ not saying you should lie about her," Satine protested, giving Sabé a look, "just that you don't necessarily have to mention her on the very first date."

Padmé sighed. "I guess that's true. But anyway, as I've told you both a thousand times, I'm not interested in dating right now because Leia's too young. She doesn't need a parade of men coming in and out of her life, getting attached to them and then being upset when I break up with them."

Sabé laughed. "Padmé Naberrie, maneater."

"Okay, obviously I'm not planning on _actually_ cycling through a bunch of guys like that, I was just being hypothetical," Padmé said, rolling her eyes. "The _point_ is, kids need stability, not to mention that I'm busy enough juggling Leia with work, let alone trying to date on top of that."

"Fair enough," Satine said. "All we're saying is that you shouldn't completely close yourself off from the _idea_ of starting to date again just because of Leia. Who knows, maybe you'll meet a really great guy someday soon. You wouldn't want to let him get away just because you think Leia's too young to handle you dating. It'd be easy enough to date someone for a few months without Leia knowing about it, and you wouldn't have to tell her until you're sure the relationship is serious."

Padmé conceded the point, and they were quiet for a few minutes before she said hesitantly, "You know, actually, now that you mention it…there was someone today—"

"What?" Sabé demanded. "Who? Why didn't you tell us about this the second you walked through the door?"

"Calm down, it was nothing, really," Padmé said hastily. "I just ran into an attractive dad while I was dropping Leia off at school, that's all. I mean, we only talked for about ten seconds and I'm sure he's probably married—"

"Did you see a ring?" Satine asked, looking highly interested.

"Well, no," she admitted. She may or may not have involuntarily glanced at his left ring finger when she'd passed him the tissue, and it was most definitely bare. "But that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Maybe he's married but doesn't have a ring, or maybe he's engaged but not married yet, or maybe he's in a committed long-term relationship and they just didn't want to get married, or—"

" _Or_ maybe he's single," Sabé said, snickering. "Jeez, you seem to have thought an awful lot about this even though it was 'nothing, really.'"

Padmé blushed as Sabé and Satine gave her matching Cheshire cat grins. "I was just trying to distract myself from being sad about Leia starting kindergarten," she mumbled.

"Mm-hmm. So what exactly went down between you and Hot Dad?"

"' _Hot Dad'?_ For God's sake, he wasn't that hot." Padmé paused. "Actually, that's a total lie, he was possibly the hottest person I've ever seen."

" _Now_ we're talking," Satine said in delight. "All right, spill."

"There's really not much to tell," Padmé insisted, but she dutifully told the whole story anyway.

"Okay, so he's hot, he has an adorable son who he loves very much, _and_ he's comfortable enough with his masculinity to cry in public," Sabé said, making Padmé roll her eyes yet again. "He sounds perfect."

"Sure, _if_ he's single, which he probably isn't because he's gorgeous," Padmé replied. "Anyway, I'm _not_ looking to date right now, okay? I was only sharing a fun anecdote because I thought you'd appreciate it, I don't actually _care."_

There went the Cheshire cat grins again. "Sure, Padmé."

* * *

 **Hope you enjoyed this chapter and that you stick around for the next one! :)**


	2. Chapter 2

"Mommy, I made a new friend today!" Leia burst out excitedly the second Padmé walked in the door.

Padmé smiled and knelt down to hug her daughter. "That's wonderful, Leia," she said, kissing her on both cheeks. It was only mid-October and she knew it was silly to already be worried about Leia not making friends when the school year had just started, but even so Padmé had been fretting about it for the past couple weeks. Sola had patiently assured her that Leia would be making friends in no time, and Padmé was relieved to see that her older sister was right (as she always was when it came to parenting).

"His name is Luke," Leia continued. "His dad forgot to pack him a snack today, so I shared mine with him, and then he helped me draw a picture of a mermaid, but you can't see it yet 'cause it's not done, and then we played on the swings together at recess."

"His dad forgot to pack him a snack?" Padmé repeated a little disapprovingly.

Leia nodded. "But Luke thought my pretzels were yummy, so it was okay. And his dad picked him up after school and he looked really sad and said he was sorry when Luke told him he forgot to pack him a snack."

"Hmmm. Well, it was very nice of you to share with him," said Padmé, giving her another kiss.

"Sharing is caring," Leia recited dutifully, and Padmé laughed.

"Why don't you go get your backpack and put your shoes on while I say hi to Auntie Sola and Ryoo and Pooja?"

Padmé didn't get out of work until dinnertime, and Leia always went home with her aunt and cousins after school. Before Leia was born, Padmé had wondered how Sola didn't go crazy with boredom being a full-time stay-at-home mom; now, though, she knew from experience that taking care of kids was a _lot_ more work than people without kids always assumed it was (and Sola had twice as many kids as she did). There had been many a day during the past five years when Padmé had almost wished she could be a stay-at-home-mom too, particularly before Leia had been old enough to start school, but as a single mother, that just wasn't an option. She needed a job to support the two of them, and besides, while the domestic lifestyle seemed to work quite well for Sola, Padmé knew that she herself probably _would_ go crazy. She'd always been very career-oriented, and as frustrating as her job in the HR department at city hall could sometimes be, she didn't think she'd be able to survive if she didn't get to take a break from parenting and have normal, rational conversations with other adults every day. There were only so many times you could discuss whether or not trees have feelings without getting a headache.

Padmé spent ten minutes chatting with Sola while Leia finished up whatever indecipherable imaginary scenario she'd been acting out with Ryoo and Pooja, who were in third and first grade respectively. Then Sola's husband got home from work, and it was another ten minutes before Padmé could manage to tug Leia out the door. "You'll see Uncle Darred and Auntie Sola and Ryoo and Pooja when we go to Grandma and Grandpa's house on Saturday," she reminded her, and Leia perked up at the thought and willingly climbed into the car.

They were driving home from Sola's house one evening two weeks later when Leia asked, "Can we invite Luke over for a playdate?"

Luke…Luke…oh, the boy with the snack-forgetting father. "Sure," said Padmé. "I'll ask Auntie Sola if she wouldn't mind bringing him home with you guys after school sometime."

Leia frowned. "But I want him to come to _our_ house. He's _my_ friend, not Ryoo and Pooja's."

"What happened to sharing is caring?"

"Mommyyyy," Leia whined. "Pleeeease?"

Padmé considered the situation. She _did_ want to make sure Leia made friends with her own classmates instead of only ever having playdates with her cousins. Plus, Padmé was notorious for stockpiling vacation time all year and never using it, so she'd be perfectly able to leave work a few hours early one afternoon. "Oh, all right. Point him out to me tomorrow morning so I can talk to his parents to figure out a day," she said. She usually tried not to give in whenever Leia whined, fearing it would encourage bad habits, but as she beheld the beam on her daughter's face, Padmé couldn't find it in herself to regret it.

Leia spent the entire drive to school the next morning chattering excitedly about everything she had planned for her and Luke's playdate, and Padmé's reminders that she'd have to ask him what _he_ wanted to do fell on deaf ears. When they arrived in the schoolyard, Padmé obligingly allowed herself to be led over to the area where Leia's kindergarten class always gathered before the bell rang. As they approached, Padmé scanned the other kids, trying to guess which one was Luke.

"There he is!" Leia said suddenly, yanking on Padmé's hand.

She started hurrying over towards a little boy who was waving excitedly at her. A little blond boy. An adorable little blond boy. An adorable little blond boy who was grabbing his father's hand and tugging him in Leia's and Padmé's direction. His father, who was tall and broad-shouldered and had tousled sandy hair and nice eyes and a beautiful smile.

His father, who was none other than _Hot Dad._

* * *

At that very moment, Anakin's internal monologue was more along the lines of unintelligible screaming than coherent words, but if he had to verbalize it, it probably would've been something like _Oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God—_

And then the two parties had met in the middle and Anakin was trying so, so hard not to just up and die on the spot, but it was a mighty struggle seeing as this was the first time he'd seen her up close since the first day of school and she was even more beautiful than he'd remembered and, oh God, she was _smiling_ at him and he was pretty sure he should probably be saying something right about now but he didn't trust himself to even be able to _breathe_ properly, let alone open his mouth and say words. Of _course_ Luke's first friend just _had_ to be the daughter of the woman Anakin had been admiring from afar like a lovesick teenager every morning since the first week of September. That was just so utterly typical of Anakin's life. The powers that be were probably laughing their heads off at him.

"Leia, this is my dad. Daddy, this is Leia," Luke was saying.

Anakin managed to snap himself out of it and look down at Leia and say in a (mostly) steady voice, "Hi, Leia. It's nice to meet you."

"It's nice to meet you too, Luke's dad," Leia said promptly.

The woman laughed. "His name isn't 'Luke's dad,' sweetie, it's Mr.…" She trailed off and gave him a politely questioning look.

"Skywalker," Anakin supplied.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Skywalker," Leia amended. "This is my mom. Mommy, this is Luke."

The woman smiled at Luke. "Nice to meet you, Luke." Then she glanced up at Anakin and smiled again. Oh, he was going to die. "And you too, Mr. Skywalker."

"Thanks," Anakin blurted out, then turned bright red. "I-I mean, you too. Nice to meet you, Mrs., uh—"

"Ms.," she corrected, piquing Anakin's curiosity. "Ms. Naberrie." If she was so emphatic that she was a "Ms." rather than a "Mrs." could that mean she wasn't married? No, Anakin told himself sternly, married women choose to go by "Ms." all the time. It didn't mean anything. _But_ she wasn't wearing a wedding or engagement ring…well, she could easily still have _some_ sort of partner even without a wedding or engagement ring. No point getting his hopes up.

He dragged his attention back to the conversation as Ms. Naberrie said, "Leia was wondering if Luke would like to come over to our house after school some day this week."

Anakin looked down at Luke. "What do you think, buddy? Do you want to have a playdate at Leia's house?"

"Yeah!" he said excitedly, making Leia beam and both adults chuckle.

"Great. Let me check our calendar," Ms. Naberrie said, pulling her phone out. Luckily, before Anakin could do something stupid like ask for her number and possibly also if she would be willing to bear any and all of his future children, she spoke again. "Leia has soccer on Thursdays, but any other day would work. What's best for you?"

Anakin consulted his own phone calendar, though more because he needed a second to compose himself than because he actually needed to double check what his and Luke's plans were that week. "Let's see…Luke has a piano lesson on Wednesday, so how about Friday?"

"That sounds great."

They planned for Friday, and when the bell rang a couple minutes later Luke and Leia headed off in high spirits…leaving Anakin alone with Ms. Naberrie. He gave her an awkward nod and smile and turned to head back to his car, signaling the end of the conversation.

But a second later, he realized she had fallen into step beside him. What was she doing? Did she really expect Anakin to be capable of holding an entire conversation without either of their children present? "My name's Padmé, by the way," she said.

"Padmé…that's a pretty name," Anakin said, then immediately kicked himself. See? Totally incapable of holding a conversation without a pair of five-year-olds there to protect him from his own stupidity.

But then he realized that rather than judging him, Padmé had turned a little pink and was smiling at him. "Thank you," she said. Anakin hesitantly smiled back, and after several long moments Padmé said rather teasingly, "I'm guessing you have a first name too?"

"Oh. Yes, sorry. Anakin. Is my name," he babbled, hating himself. "I'm Anakin. Anakin Skywalker."

 _Now_ she looked like she was trying not to laugh at him. This was humiliating. "Anakin's a pretty name too," Padmé said; he admittedly couldn't tell if she was serious or just making fun of him, but either way his stomach squirmed.

"So, um…what do you do?" Anakin asked next. "As a job, I mean. Or in your free time. Either way." At this point, it was a miracle he could get any words out past the foot in his mouth.

Padmé actually did laugh this time, but it didn't feel like she was laughing _at_ him, which was a relief. "I have a full-time job and a five-year-old. What free time?" Anakin joined in her laughter—he could relate all too well—and a moment later she added, "I work in HR at city hall. You?"

"I'm an IT guy at an insurance company."

"Oh, really? So are you good with computers?"

"Oh, you know. I'm all right," Anakin said, unable to help but grin a little as she blushed.

"Right. Obviously," Padmé mumbled. "I was just wondering because my work laptop's been going crazy lately and I can't figure out what's wrong with it."

"Your office doesn't have its own IT guy?"

"We do, but he's an asshole," Padmé said bluntly, and Anakin laughed. "I hate asking him for help. He's always so condescending."

"Maybe I could check it out while Luke and I are at your house on Friday," Anakin offered. "I promise I'm not a condescending asshole. At least, _most_ of the time I'm not."

Padmé chuckled, but it didn't quite mask the quick flash of confusion Anakin saw on her face. He suddenly realized that maybe she hadn't intended for _him_ to come over to her house, just Luke. Had he overstepped by inviting himself into her home? He had no idea what the etiquette was for kindergarten playdates, but he'd automatically assumed he and Luke would both go because he wasn't especially keen on leaving Luke by himself at a relative stranger's house. Was that not a correct assumption? Maybe he should just ask Padmé if she was okay with him being there. Except he probably should phrase his concerns a little more politely.

"I-I mean, if you're all right with me coming along too?" Anakin said uncertainly. "Not that I'm trying to, like, invite myself into your house, it's just that this is Luke's first real playdate and he's probably going to be a little nervous, especially since it's at someone else's house, so I wanted to stay to make sure he's comfortable. But if you'd rather I didn't—"

"No, that's fine," Padmé said quickly. "It just hadn't occurred to me that you'd want to stay the whole time, but now I realize I'd definitely want to stay too if it was Leia going over to a new friend's house for the first time."

"Oh. So you're sure you don't mind?"

"Definitely not, it'd be good to have someone else there to help me keep an eye on them." Did that mean Padmé was the only adult in her household? "Sorry, I'm just not really sure how this playdate thing all works," she said with a sheepish smile. "I should've asked my sister for a rundown beforehand."

Anakin remembered her mentioning she had a sister with kids of her own on the first day of school. Was it creepy that he still remembered that? He put it out of his mind and said, "Yeah, I don't really know what I'm doing either. But at least we're on the same page now."

"Yes," Padmé said with a little laugh. "So I'll see you and Luke after school on Friday, then."

"Great. I'll bring some snacks for them to have."

"Oh, you don't have to do that. We have plenty of stuff already."

"Well, you're hosting, so it's the least I can do," Anakin replied. "Besides, I owe you and Leia one for the time she shared her snack with Luke when I forgot to pack something for him."

Padmé laughed. "All right, then. Thank you."

With some disappointment, Anakin realized they'd reached his car. "Well, I have to head to work now. See you Friday?"

"Yeah." Padmé gave him a warm smile. "It was nice meeting you, Anakin."

Anakin smiled back, butterflies swirling in his stomach like he was sixteen again. "You too, Padmé."

* * *

Friday afternoon couldn't come soon enough, in Leia's opinion—or in Padmé's, not that she would've admitted it. Leaving work early on Friday was a relief ( _why_ did she never use her vacation time, again?), but when she arrived at the elementary school, she saw that Anakin was wearing casual clothes. Oh no. Why hadn't she left a little earlier so she'd have time to stop at home and change? She must look terribly overdressed.

Anakin smiled when he saw her. "Hey."

"Hi." Padmé glanced self-consciously down at her outfit. "Sorry, I came right from work, so I didn't have time to change."

"That's all right. You look nice." As soon as the words left his mouth, Anakin's eyes widened and a deep blush spread across his cheeks. "Um, I mean, you look very, uh, very professional."

Padmé's face was flaming too, but luckily the end-of-the-day bell chose that moment to ring and distractions soon arrived in the forms of Leia and Luke. They insisted on riding home in the same car, so Padmé drove them both while Anakin followed behind in his car. Upon their arrival at the Naberries' house, Anakin set the kids up with a snack while Padmé went upstairs to change into more comfortable clothes (though the selected outfit was still a definite step-up from the leggings and T-shirts she usually favored on Friday afternoons. Not that she was trying to impress anyone or anything).

She returned downstairs to discover that Leia and Luke had moved from the kitchen to the living room and now appeared to be using several Barbies to act out the tale of a daring space rescue mission. Padmé grabbed her laptop and went into the kitchen, where Anakin was sitting at the table. "Would you like anything to eat or drink?" she asked. "I was going to make some coffee."

"That'd be great, thanks."

As the coffee brewed, the kitchen was quiet except for the sounds of Anakin clicking away on Padmé's laptop and muffled "pew pew" noises from Leia and Luke in the next room. Padmé was just pouring the coffee into two mugs when Luke gasped and said dramatically, "That's no moon. It's a space station!"

Both parents chuckled, and Anakin accepted his mug as Padmé settled herself into the chair beside him. "Kids' imaginations will never cease to amaze me," she remarked.

"Tell me about it," he said. "At least I get a break from having to be the evil robot overlord for Luke to vanquish today, though."

"Really? Leia always makes me be a queen so that she can be a princess."

"Lucky." A few sips of coffee later, Anakin announced, "Well, you definitely have a virus."

"What?" Padmé said in dismay. "Is it fixable?"

"Probably. It doesn't look like it's _too_ bad," he assured her, which eased her worries slightly. "I'll have to take it home over the weekend to see what I can do."

"Okay." Padmé frowned. "How did this even happen?"

He shrugged. "Could've been anything. Maybe you opened an email attachment that had the virus in it, or pirated music or TV, or downloaded something from a sketchy site."

"Huh. Must've been an email, I guess. I don't pirate anything."

"Really?" Anakin asked skeptically.

"I don't!" she insisted, indignant.

"Goody two-shoes."

"Oh, sorry, I didn't realize there were _three_ five-year-olds in my house at the moment."

He laughed, and Padmé tried to ignore the way it made her feel all warm and fuzzy. "Is Leia always so outgoing?" he asked after another minute.

"Oh, yes," Padmé said, shaking her head and grinning. "You don't even want to know how many times I've caught her telling her life story to strangers in the park." They both laughed. "What about Luke?"

"Once he's comfortable with someone he does _not_ stop talking, but he can be kind of shy at first. I'm actually surprised he wasn't shy with you," Anakin added thoughtfully. "I mean, he doesn't really have that many adult women in his life, just my mom and Ahsoka."

"Ahsoka?" she prodded. "Is that his mother?" She knew the question was nosy, but Anakin's comment had further piqued her already significant curiosity about the subject.

" _God,_ no," he said, looking as if he was torn between laughing and gagging. "Ahsoka's a coworker and good friend of mine. Luke's mom isn't in the picture."

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that," Padmé said. (Was she, though? Was she really sorry?) "Neither is Leia's dad."

"I'm sorry," Anakin echoed, looking just as curious as Padmé felt.

"I'd hate to pry," she began, "but if you don't mind my asking, what happened? To Luke's mom?"

He made a face. "She, ah, wasn't exactly the parental type. And the timing sucked, seeing as we weren't together that long, and she found out she was pregnant about a week after we'd broken up. She didn't want to keep him but I begged her to. I was terrified by the idea of raising a kid, especially because I was so young, but at the same time…it was _my_ baby, _my_ child, and I couldn't stand the thought of not keeping him. Eventually she agreed and we decided to give our relationship another shot for the baby's sake, but it just didn't work out. We weren't at all right for each other, she never wanted to be a mom in the first place, I knew that but still made her keep the baby because I wanted him…anyway, I woke up one morning when Luke was two months old and found a note on the kitchen table saying she was sorry but she just couldn't do it. Then she gave me full custody and waived all her parental rights, and that was the last I ever heard from her."

Padmé gave a low whistle. "How old were you?" she said, stuck on the part where he'd said he was "so young" when Luke was born.

"Only twenty-three, fresh out of college. We both were," Anakin replied. "So I don't blame her for not being ready to be a mom, especially since our relationship wasn't that serious in the first place. I knew even before she got pregnant that she wasn't in it for the long haul. That's why I ended things between us the first time, actually. I wanted commitment, and I knew she wasn't willing to give it to me."

"Wow," Padmé said, shaking her head. A single parent of an infant at twenty-three. "That must have been really hard for you. I mean, I was twenty- _eight_ when I had Leia and all my friends and family were really supportive and helpful, but even then it was so hard to do everything on my own. I can't even imagine what it would've been like to take care of a baby all by myself right after college."

"Well, I _did_ have my mom, and she was just…I honestly don't think I could've done it without her. She let me and Luke move back in with her for a couple years until I could afford my own place, and she raised me all on her own too, so she had a lot of advice about single parenthood." Anakin hesitated for a moment, then said, "What happened to Leia's dad? I mean, if you don't mind talking about it, I don't want to be rude—"

"That's okay," Padmé assured him with a chuckle. "I asked you first, it's only fair I tell my story now. It was basically the same as what happened with you, I guess. Our relationship wasn't strong enough to withstand having a baby, not to mention that he also wasn't the parental type, like you said. When I told him I was pregnant, he dumped me and ran off God knows where the very next day. That's pretty much all there was to it."

"That's horrible," Anakin murmured, giving her a sympathetic look. "The first year of parenthood was hard enough to do alone as it was, but I can't imagine what it must've been like to get through your entire pregnancy alone, too."

"It _was_ really hard," she admitted. "But like I said, I had a great support system. And Sola, my sister, had a new baby and a two-year-old at the time, so she knew everything about pregnancy and babies, and she was a huge help. Besides, after a few months, I realized that I was way better off without Leia's dad and that Leia would be way better off, too."

They sat in reflective silence for a few moments, and then Anakin smiled and said, "To be honest, I'm glad I'm not the only single parent in Luke's class." He paused. "That is, unless you aren't—I mean, just because Leia's dad's not around—"

"No, I am a single parent," Padmé said quickly, heart fluttering slightly at his tacit admission that he, too, was completely single.

"Oh, good." He turned rather pink and added, "I just mean, for the sake of having someone else in their class who's in the same boat. You know how judgmental non-single parents can be."

Padmé was flushing a little too, but she laughed. "I definitely do." After another minute or two, she said, "Well, I think that's enough talk about exes and single parenthood. Seems like a pretty heavy conversation for a playdate."

"Yeah, you're right. Although, really, our kids are the ones having a playdate. For us it's just a regular date." Anakin's face immediately turned the color of a firetruck, and he hastily amended, "I-I mean, that's not—I was just—not a _date_ date, obviously, I just meant—"

"I know what you meant," Padmé said, though she was sure she was also blushing yet again. She cleared her throat and hastily changed the subject to steer the conversation into safer territory.

Leia and Luke both whined when Anakin announced around five o'clock that it was time to go home, and Padmé may or may not have whined a little bit internally, too. Though she was still somewhat flustered around him (how could she not be? He was _gorgeous,_ and now confirmed to be single), there was something about him that made her feel so _comfortable,_ as if they'd known each other for years instead of only a few days. After all, it wasn't often that she spoke much about what had happened with Leia's father, and yet she'd spilled the whole tale to Anakin during their first real non-small-talk conversation. And he'd confided in her likewise.

"Thank you for having me over, Ms. Naberrie," Luke said without even any prompting from Anakin, and Padmé smiled. He really was the sweetest little kid.

"Anytime," she told him. "We hope you'll come back soon, don't we, Leia?"

"Yeah!" Leia said enthusiastically, and Luke beamed.

"Thanks so much for hosting." Anakin smiled at Padmé, then turned to Luke. "How about we invite Leia over to our house next time?"

"Can she come over tomorrow?" Luke asked hopefully, and both parents laughed.

"Maybe not _tomorrow,"_ said Anakin. "But next week might be all right."

He looked at Padmé for confirmation, and she nodded. "Next week would be perfect," she said, and the kids cheered.

As Luke worked on tying his shoes, Padmé gestured towards the laptop Anakin was holding and said, "Thank you for taking a look at that. I really appreciate it."

"No problem." He grinned. "It's nice to have my talents appreciated. At work, everyone just expects me to be ready at their every beck and call and gets mad when I don't know how to solve the problem. Although that's a pretty rare occurrence. Usually it's just sixty-year-olds who think the devil possessed their computer because their internet isn't working, but really they're just not connected to the Wi-Fi."

Padmé laughed loudly. "Well, at least I'm a _little_ more tech-savvy than that. Barely, though."

Finally Luke finished with his shoes, and Anakin ushered him towards the door. Just before stepping outside, Anakin turned back to Padmé and said almost a little shyly, "I had a really nice time talking to you, Padmé."

Her stomach squirmed pleasantly. "So did I," she said, smiling.

* * *

 **Don't expect Luke or Leia's absent parents to ever show up ok this fic is Fluff Only no drama here lmao I just had to come up with some explanation as to how Anakin and Padme ended up as single parents but yeah the other parents are totally irrelevant to this fic. Also can I just say that everyone who complains about Anakin being awkward and cringey around Padme in Attack of the Clones really needs to try writing a fic sometime because hoo boy awkward cringey Anakin is THE MOST FUN to write hahaha**


	3. Chapter 3

**Extra long chapter bc I couldn't find a good place to split it :P hope you like it!**

* * *

"So, you know Anakin? Luke's dad?" Padmé asked Sola the next day. She and Leia had gone over to visit for the afternoon, and the three cousins were coloring at the kitchen table while Padmé sat on the couch in the living room chatting with Sola and Darred.

Sola grinned. "Anakin, formerly known as Hot Dad?"

"That's the one," said Padmé, though not without an exasperated sigh; she should've known better than to mention her coworkers' teasing to her sister. "Well, he and Luke were at our house for three hours yesterday, and—"

"Daddy, I need help with my picture!" Pooja suddenly called from the other room. As an architect, Darred was quite excellent at drawing, and Padmé could always tell which of the pictures on the fridge had involved his assistance.

"Coming," Darred said, looking relieved. To Sola and Padmé, he added, "I'm not sure I want to be a part of this conversation anyway."

They both laughed and he hurried away towards the kitchen. "You were saying?" Sola prompted. "About Hot Dad?"

"About _Anakin,"_ Padmé corrected firmly. "Anyway, I found out that he _is_ single. Like, _completely_ single. Not even a girlfriend or anything."

"Nice!" Sola said in delight. "So are you going to get on that or what?"

"Sola!"

"What? I know you keep saying you don't want to date until Leia's older and more able to handle it, and I get that, but you don't have to put your own life completely on hold for her sake," Sola pointed out. "Plus, she'd probably love the idea of her mom dating her friend's dad."

"That's exactly why I can't," said Padmé. " _Maybe_ she'd love it, but _maybe_ she'd think it was really weird. And what if we dated and then broke up? It might damage her friendship with Luke, and I'd hate for that to happen. Or what if she got really attached to Anakin and was devastated when we broke up?"

"Well, then, maybe she doesn't have to know about it right away," Sola replied, once again echoing Satine and Sabé. "I mean, obviously you'd have to tell her _eventually,_ but why not spend a few months testing the waters with Anakin before telling either of your kids? If it starts getting serious, then you'll tell them, but if you quickly realize that it's not going to work out, you can call it quits without Leia or Luke ever being any the wiser."

"That is…actually a good idea," Padmé admitted. "But still, Leia's only _five._ I feel like I should wait at least a few more years before dating again."

"If Anakin really is as hot as you say, a few years might be too late," said Sola. "He'll get snapped up by someone else, and then you'll always wonder what could've happened if you'd acted sooner."

"Okay, you're being a little dramatic. I only just met him, it's not like he's my _soulmate."_

"Well, he _could_ be, but how will you know until you try?"

"He probably isn't even interested in me at all."

"Then he's an idiot. Anyone would be lucky to have you."

Padmé rolled her eyes, but she couldn't help smiling. "Thanks," she said. "But most people aren't that willing to date the single mother of a five-year-old. Too much responsibility."

Sola stared at her incredulously. "Are you seriously trying to tell me that the father of a five-year-old wouldn't want to date you because you also have a five-year-old?"

She had a point. "Well, he's five years younger than me," Padmé tried, remembering he'd mentioned he'd only been twenty-three when Luke was born.

"Who _cares?_ This isn't _high school,_ you're both grown adults with children. A five-year age difference is nothing." Sola gave her a knowing look. "You're just making excuses."

"So what if I am?" Padmé retorted. "My last relationship ended up with me being pregnant and alone, in case you've forgotten. I'm not exactly eager to have my heart broken again."

Sola's expression softened. "I know. But you can't let one scumbag prevent you from ever being happy. To be fair, I've never actually _met_ Anakin, but the fact that he's presumably a great dad to Luke must indicate that he's not a scumbag."

"I'd like to think my expectations for a boyfriend are a little higher than just 'not a scumbag,'" Padmé replied, but Sola's words had made her remember something else. Commitment… "You know, actually, he told me he wanted commitment in a relationship, or at least he did five or six years ago."

Sola's eyes looked like they were about to fall out of her head. "Hang on, he _literally told you_ he wanted commitment in a relationship? And you think he's not interested in you? Are you _blind?"_

"He didn't mean it like that," Padmé said hastily, and she recounted her and Anakin's entire conversation from the previous afternoon.

"Let me get this straight," Sola said when she'd finished. "He's gorgeous, he's single, he's a great dad, he's nice, he's funny, and he wants a committed relationship. Could he _be_ any more perfect for you?"

"No," Padmé said with a sigh. "You're right, he seems perfect, which makes me think there must be some big thing that's really wrong with him."

Sola laughed. "Padmé, sometimes things actually _are_ as good as they seem."

"I guess. He'd still never want to date me, though."

"You never know until you try."

"Well, I barely even know him."

"So _get_ to know him," Sola urged. "You'll probably be spending lots of time together now that your kids are friends. You'll have a better idea of whether or not he's boyfriend material as you get to know him, and if it turns out he _is,_ I say go for it."

Padmé chewed her lip. "I have a kid. We both do. I can't just _go for it."_

"You _can._ Go after what you want. Live a little." Sola smirked and added, "When's the last time you even slept with anyone, anyway?"

"None of your business," Padmé mumbled, flushing.

"So not since before Leia was born, then? That's what I thought." Sola's smirk softened into a kinder smile. "Look, I'm not just saying I think you should get laid—but I _do_ think that—I'm also saying you deserve someone who loves you the way Darred loves me. Maybe Anakin could be that person, maybe not. Like you said, you only just met him, so there's no way you could know yet. But falling in love always comes with the chance of heartbreak. You just have to decide if you're willing to take the risk."

Padmé mulled that over. She _did_ want to find a long-term partner; she'd always hoped to someday fall in love and settle down. And most of the arguments against a relationship with Anakin that she'd presented to Sola _were_ pretty flimsy… "Well, maybe," she said at last. "But I'm reserving judgment at least until Leia and I go over to his and Luke's house next weekend. If it's a pigsty, I'm out."

* * *

As it turned out, the Skywalkers' house was not a pigsty, to Padmé's relief. On the contrary, it was quite tidy and cozy, though a little smaller than her own house. And it had a decent backyard too, which was lucky, as Leia and Luke decided to spend the first hour playing in piles of fallen leaves.

Padmé, who was sitting on the porch with Anakin and observing the proceedings, wrinkled her nose. "I've never understood the appeal of playing in leaf piles. Who knows what kinds of bugs are crawling around in there?"

"As long as there's no tarantulas, I'd say it's probably fine," Anakin replied, grinning. "Besides, the leaves crunch really satisfyingly when you jump on them."

"Maybe you should go join the kids, then."

"Maybe I will."

Leia and Luke started complaining that they were cold, so the parents ushered them back inside, and Anakin made hot chocolate for all four of them (it was delicious). The kids had settled down with some toy spaceships—Luke was currently very into space, according to Anakin—and Padmé and Anakin had been chatting for about ten minutes when Anakin said, "Oh, I just remembered, I fixed your laptop."

"Really? You did?" she asked, thrilled.

"Uh-huh. Let me run and grab it."

He came back a minute later with the laptop in hand, and Padmé beamed. "All set," said Anakin, passing it to her.

"Thank you so much!" She dug around in her purse and pulled out her wallet. "How much do I owe you?"

He waved a hand. "Don't worry about it."

"No, come on," Padmé insisted. "It must've taken a lot of time."

"Nah, it was a pretty quick fix." Anakin grabbed her wallet out of her hands and put it back in her purse. "Seriously, it's fine."

"But—"

"I don't need money to do a favor for a friend," he said with a small smile.

That effectively silenced Padmé's protests, and she shyly smiled back. Anakin thought of her as his _friend,_ even though they'd only known each other two weeks.

And then, before she could think twice about it, Padmé found herself blurting out, "Well, if you won't accept money, at least let me take you out for coffee or something."

Anakin's lips parted in surprise, and Padmé was pretty sure she was going to actually die. What on _earth_ had possessed her to say that? What was wrong with her? What happened to getting to know him first? Would he think she meant it as a date? _Did_ she mean it as a date? What if—

"I-I'd like that," Anakin said at last, and now he was the one smiling shyly at her, and they were both blushing and Padmé was still mortified, but on the other hand he'd said yes, which meant he at least didn't hate her, and—

"Daddy, we're hungry!"

Both parents jumped and turned to see that their kids had suddenly appeared in the kitchen. "Okay," said Anakin. "What would you like? I was thinking of making mac 'n cheese." Was it just Padmé's imagination or did he sound a little flustered?

"Yay, mac 'n cheese!" Leia cheered.

Luke, meanwhile, had caught sight of Padmé's laptop, and he pointed at it. "Daddy's been trying to fix that _forever,"_ he announced. "Every single day for a whole _week._ He even kept staying up past my bedtime to work on it."

Padmé turned to stare at Anakin, who was rapidly shaking his head at Luke in a cut-it-out gesture. "Oh, really?" she said. "He told me it was a quick fix."

"I asked him why he didn't just throw it out and go to the computer store to get a new one, and he said he really wanted to fix it so that someone would like him," Luke said solemnly. Then he furrowed his brow. "But I don't know _who._ Daddy, who did you want to like you? Why would fixing a computer—"

"What would you guys like to drink?" Anakin interrupted, face bright red.

Padmé couldn't entirely hide her smile.

After they finished eating, Padmé warned Leia that they had to leave in fifteen minutes, so she and Luke dashed back out into the living room to finish their game. Padmé turned her focus back towards Anakin and patted her laptop. "So it _wasn't_ a quick fix, after all."

He reddened again. "I may have been understating a _little,"_ he mumbled. "But it was nothing I couldn't handle."

"Hmmm. Well, seeing as you stayed up past Luke's bedtime every night for a week to work on it…" Padmé took a deep breath and finished, "Maybe lunch instead of just coffee?"

Anakin gave her a tentative yet genuine smile. "Sounds good."

* * *

"I have a romantic emergency and I need your help right away," Anakin said as soon as he got to work on Monday. "Well, I need _your_ help, Ahsoka, since you're the only one of the three of us who has any romantic knowledge to speak of."

"Excuse me, I was quite a hit with the ladies in my day," Obi-Wan said indignantly.

"Yeah, like, thirty years ago, and even then I'm sure you weren't as much of a hit with the ladies as Ahsoka is."

"How old do you think I am, exactly?"

"So what's the emergency?" Ahsoka interrupted, snickering.

"You remember Padmé, right?" Anakin said; he'd mentioned her a few times to them in the beginning of the school year and had gone into much greater detail after Luke and Leia's first playdate.

"Yeah. You've only been talking about her every other second for the past week," said Ahsoka.

"What? That is _so_ not true."

"It so _is_ true," Obi-Wan informed him. "You're obsessed with her. All week it's been Padmé, Padmé, Padmé."

"Mm-hmm."

Anakin huffed. "Well, anyway, she kind of asked me out yesterday? But I don't know if she meant it in a friend way or a romantic way." He told them the whole story. "So like, here's my problem. Taking me out for lunch to pay me back for fixing her laptop seems perfectly platonic, but I _swear_ she was blushing and seemed kind of embarrassed, which makes me think maybe she meant it as a date-lunch instead of a friend-lunch. I just don't _know."_

"Hmm, that is tricky," Ahsoka agreed. "It sounds pretty ambiguous to me too. Why don't you ask her what she meant?"

"No! If I ask her if she meant it as a date and it turns out she didn't, I will literally die of embarrassment."

"Really? You'll really, literally drop dead on the spot?"

"Probably!"

"All right, you need to calm down," Obi-Wan said sternly, though his lips were twitching like he was trying not to smile. "Just play it by ear. Go into it expecting a friend-lunch to be safe, but you could try subtly flirting with her a little and see if she seems receptive."

"Oh, come on, Obi-Wan, that's way too advanced for him," Ahsoka said, shaking her head. "Anakin doesn't know how to flirt subtly. Or regularly."

"Hey! What do you know about my flirting skills?"

"I saw you trying to pick someone up at a bar that time, remember? It was painful to witness."

Anakin glared at her. "Okay, that was _one time,_ and I was pretty drunk, so of course my flirting was subpar."

"Subpar? _Subpar?_ It was _atrocious!_ If telling someone she's 'beautiful _for a lawyer'_ is merely subpar for you, I'd hate to see what par is."

"Ahsoka's right, flirting might be a little risky if it's you we're talking about, I almost forgot how bad you were at it. You might scare Padmé off," Obi-Wan said, also looking highly amused at Anakin's expense. "So maybe don't try that yet and instead pay close attention to see if _she_ seems like she's flirting with _you."_

Ahsoka nodded in agreement. "She's the one who asked you out so it would make sense to follow _her_ standard of behavior since she'd know if she meant it romantically or platonically."

(Unbeknownst to any of them, Padmé had absolutely no idea if she'd meant it romantically or platonically and was currently in her own office having a very similar conversation with Satine and Sabé.)

Anakin mulled that over for a moment, then nodded. "That sounds like a good plan, I guess. Hey, Ahsoka, will you come over and help me figure out what to wear sometime? I need your advice."

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. "Jeez, it's like you've never been on a date before."

"Well, it _has_ been six or seven years."

"I don't know anything about men's fashion. Make Obi-Wan do it."

"No way, he's been wearing that same shirt in different colors practically every day for the entire time I've been working here. You're my only hope, Ahsoka."

"You really need more than two friends," Ahsoka muttered.

"You forgot Kitster and Rex," Anakin said. Kitster was his childhood friend who still lived close by, and Rex was the Skywalkers' next-door neighbor.

"Okay, make _them_ deal with your fashion crisis."

"No, they're both terrible at that sort of thing."

"Then you need more than four friends."

Nevertheless, Ahsoka came over to the Skywalkers' the next weekend and, after much deliberation, helped Anakin settle on jeans and a dark blue sweater. "Nice enough for a date, but casual enough for a non-date," she said wisely.

The possibly-a-date-but-maybe-not was the weekend after that. Padmé had insisted that Anakin pick the restaurant since it was to pay him back for fixing her laptop, and Anakin (surprisingly) made his decision almost immediately: Kitster's, a tiny local breakfast and lunch place run by (naturally) Kitster. It was inexpensive and casual but it had a cozy, intimate atmosphere and was therefore perfect for either a friend-lunch or a date-lunch.

Anakin had offered to drive Padmé there and she'd happily accepted; picking her up rather than them simply meeting at the restaurant seemed suspiciously date-like to Anakin, though it could be that Padmé had only accepted because she was environmentally conscious and wanted to save some gas. He was supposed to pick her up around noon, so at ten he drove Luke over to Shmi's house. She lived about twenty minutes away, not to mention that Anakin wanted enough extra time to get ready without Luke underfoot.

Shmi had eagerly agreed to watch Luke for as long as Anakin needed that afternoon, though he only told her he was having lunch with a friend. Like his friends, his mother had been urging him to start dating again for years and he didn't want to get her hopes up, especially seeing as he still had no idea if this was actually a date.

"If you're having a playdate with Ms. Naberrie, why can't I have a playdate with Leia?" Luke asked for the millionth time that week.

"Grown-ups don't have playdates," Anakin reminded him, also for the millionth time. "We're just having lunch. And you see Leia at school five days a week, _and_ you're going to her house after school on Tuesday."

"But why can't we both come with you _today?"_

"Ms. Naberrie is my friend, just like Leia is your friend, and we want to spend some time alone together. Besides, aren't you excited to spend the afternoon with Grandma?"

Luke ignored the last bit, pouting. "You and Ms. Naberrie don't like having me and Leia around?"

"Of course we do," Anakin said quickly. "But all we're going to be doing is eating lunch and talking about grown-up things. You and Leia would be really bored if you came. You'll have much more fun at Grandma's house."

Thankfully, Luke seemed more or less satisfied with that reasoning, and he was quiet for another few minutes before saying, "Daddy, you know how I don't have a mom?"

Anakin immediately went on high alert. Luke rarely asked about his mom, though Anakin had explained the situation to him as best he could in a way that was both truthful and sensitive. The boy simply didn't seem to have much interest in her, which was a relief for now, but Anakin knew the day would eventually come when he _did_ grow curious. "You do have a mom," he said carefully. "She just isn't part of our family, because she wasn't ready to be."

"Okay. So you know how I don't have a mom?"

Anakin sighed. He'd tried. And Luke wasn't exactly wrong; for all intents and purposes, he really _didn't_ have a mom. "Yes?"

"Well, _Leia_ has a mom, and she doesn't have a dad but _I_ do, so yesterday we decided that you and Ms. Naberrie should get married so that we can be brother and sister and both have a mom _and_ a dad," Luke said matter-of-factly.

Anakin nearly ran a red light. "I—w-what?" he stammered, slamming on the brakes just in time and causing the car behind him to honk angrily. "Luke, sweetie, that's—that's not going to happen."

"Why not?" Luke demanded. "You just said you like spending time with her."

"Yes, but that doesn't mean we should get married."

"Why not?"

"We haven't known each other very long, and we don't know each other very well yet," Anakin began, trying not to lose his cool over the fact that his son had just explicitly requested that he marry the woman he may or may not have a gigantic crush on. "Marriage should be between two people who know each other very well and love each other very much."

Luke thought about that. "Will you know each other well enough by…next week?"

Anakin didn't know if he wanted to sigh or laugh. "No, we won't. Even if we do know each other well enough eventually, we might never love each other enough. Marriage is a big, life-changing commitment, Luke. You're promising that you'll spend the rest of your life with another person, so you have to be one hundred percent sure that you mean it."

"But Leia and I _want_ you to get married," said Luke, frowning.

"I know that, buddy, but Ms. Naberrie and I don't want to get married." Seeing the opportunity for a good life lesson, Anakin continued, "Getting married is a decision that only you and the other person can make. It's important to take your loved ones' opinions into account, but ultimately, no one but you should decide whether or not you want to get married. I would never marry anyone you didn't want me to marry, Luke, but I also would never marry someone _I_ didn't want to marry just because _you_ wanted me to marry them."

There was a moment of silence, and then Luke heaved a loud sigh. "Fine," he said sullenly. "But it would be _cool_ if you married Leia's mom. Then we wouldn't have to have playdates all the time because we'd live in the same house!"

Anakin laughed, unable to help it. Five-year-old logic was so straightforward. If only life could remain that simple.

Despite the complaints he'd lodged in the car, Luke raced inside his grandmother's house as soon as they arrived; Shmi always spoiled him rotten and let him get away with anything, and Luke knew it. Anakin chatted with her only briefly before heading back home to get ready for his possibly-a-date-but-maybe-not. After showering, he ended up dithering about his outfit for a solid forty-five minutes and trying on several alternatives before ultimately going back to his original one, reminding himself that it had Ahsoka's stamp of approval and she would've told him if it wasn't good enough.

At last he was ready, but he still had twenty minutes to spare so he ended up pacing aimlessly up and down the living room, checking his watch about once every thirty seconds. At ten of noon, Anakin had a moment of panic about whether he should be on time or fashionably late, and he decided to shoot for arriving at Padmé's house between five and ten minutes after noon so as not to seem too eager while also avoiding being so late that it was rude.

And so he finally gave his appearance one last check when the clock chimed twelve and went out to his car, and he arrived at Padmé's house at precisely 12:06. Perfect. But then he realized he didn't know what to do next. A friend would wait for her to come out or text her to say he was here, but a date would go up and knock on the door. Anakin fretted for a minute before deciding to err on the side of politeness, and he got out of the car, headed up the front steps, and rang the doorbell.

He only had to wait a few moments before Padmé was opening it. "Hey," she said, smiling at him. She was wearing dark jeans, fashionable boots, a gray cardigan over a white blouse, and a red scarf. Nice, but casual, just like Anakin. Good. Though on the other hand, it didn't give him any hints as to whether or not she thought this was a date. And her hair was down, he noticed, her face framed by long, loose curls. Anakin didn't think he'd seen her with her hair down before, she usually wore it in some sort of updo. She looked beautiful.

He smiled back. "Hi. Ready to go?"

"Yes, let me just grab my purse." She did so, and a minute later they were both in Anakin's car. They made small talk all the way to the restaurant, which was only ten minutes or so from Padmé's house.

"Kitster's," Padmé read aloud from the sign over the door. "I've never heard of this place before."

"You'll love it," Anakin promised. "Kitster Banai, the guy who runs it, is one of my oldest friends. And he makes a mean cup of coffee."

He held the door open for her, and Padmé smiled as she walked in and looked around, Anakin following her. It was tiny; there were only about ten tables, and all of them were full except for one. The crowded room gave off an impression of cheer and brightness, and you could tell right away that it was the sort of place where most of the customers were regulars.

"Ani!"

Kitster was winding his way through the cramped seating area, and he and Anakin exchanged a hug when he reached them. "Hey, Kitster," said Anakin. "Busy day, huh?"

"You don't know the half of it," Kitster replied. "You should've seen what it was like at breakfast. And just as a heads up, you're not getting any free coffee today 'cause I've been saving that table for you and had to turn away two other very annoyed parties. Favoritism's bad for business."

Anakin laughed. "Good for friendship, though." He turned towards Padmé. "Padmé, this is Kitster Banai. Kitster, this is my…" Date? Crush? Son's friend's mom? "…friend, Padmé Naberrie."

The two exchanged greetings, and Anakin couldn't help but feel a little disappointed that Padmé hadn't corrected him calling her his friend. Surely if their lunch really was a date she would've said something? On the other hand, he could've sworn he saw a flash of disappointment cross her face when he said it, as if she'd been hoping he'd introduce her as his date. Unless she'd actually maintained her pleasantly neutral expression the whole time and Anakin's overactive imagination had created the other part. That was pretty likely too. Kitster led them to the empty table and gave them menus, and Anakin firmly resolved to stop overanalyzing _everything_ and just enjoy himself. Even if it wasn't a date, he was still spending time alone with Padmé for the first time, and that was something in and of itself.

"Ani?" she said questioningly, and a little teasingly, once Kitster had departed again.

Anakin reddened. "Childhood nickname. Kitster and my mom are pretty much the only ones who still call me that. It's pretty embarrassing. I mean, 'Ani' is fine for a little kid, but for a grown adult? Not so much."

"No, I think it's cute," said Padmé, grinning, and his flush deepened. "I've never had any nicknames."

"Huh. I guess 'Padmé' doesn't really lend itself to nicknames," Anakin said, nodding.

"Yeah. But my niece Pooja used to call me 'Auntie Pad-Pad' when she was a toddler."

He laughed. "I'll have to remember that one." A moment later he asked, "So, you and your sister are really close?"

Padmé nodded. "People always talk about siblings fighting with each other all the time, but it was never really like that with me and Sola. We've been best friends since we were kids."

"That must be nice," Anakin said wistfully. "I always wanted a sibling when I was little. But looking back on it, I actually think that the fact that it was just me and my mom all our lives made us closer, you know? Just like the way it is now with me and Luke, and with you and Leia too from what I've seen."

"Here's hoping it stays that way. I've spent the past five years dreading the day Leia becomes a teenager and decides she doesn't need me anymore." Padmé kept her tone light and Anakin chuckled along with her, but that was a very real fear of his too. "Being a parent has given me a new respect for my own parents," she said next. "Every time I think of how I'll feel if— _when_ Leia starts getting embarrassed by me, starts refusing to hold my hand, stops asking me to tuck her in and kiss her goodnight…it makes me realize how much I must've hurt _my_ parents when I did that to them."

"Same here. But it's just a phase all kids go through," said Anakin, "and most of them grow out of it. I mean, in middle and high school whenever my mom hugged me I'd always complain and say she was embarrassing me, but now I view her hugs as, like, the best thing in the world."

Padmé smiled. "Then I hope Leia grows out of the embarrassed phase. Luke too." A minute later, she said thoughtfully, "Me and my parents, we were never…well, we're _close,_ obviously, of course we are, but it's just…they were never really the first people I'd go to, I guess. That was always Sola for me. I'd tell her everything, and I still do, but I've never confided much in my parents."

"I think that's pretty normal, though," Anakin countered. "Or at least, I've always thought it was, seeing as Kitster and everyone always called me a mama's boy for confiding in my mom as much as I did." They both laughed.

Kitster came back to personally take their orders; Padmé ordered a wrap, while Anakin got chocolate chip pancakes. "Pancakes for lunch?" Padmé asked afterwards, raising an eyebrow.

"Hey, it's always a good time for pancakes," he argued. "Luke and I have breakfast for dinner all the time. Trust me, if I could eat breakfast food for every meal, I would."

"I usually just have a quick bowl of cereal in the mornings," said Padmé, and Anakin stared at her in horror. "I'm not really much of a cook at the best of times, so at seven in the morning, forget it."

He laughed. "I like cooking," he said. "My mom always had to work late when I was in high school, and I ended up making dinner a lot so it'd be ready as soon as she got home. And now it's a good way to relax after a long day at work."

Padmé grimaced. "Relax? Trying to make dinner stresses me out more than an entire day of work."

Anakin laughed again and said, "So what do you like to do to relax, if not cooking?"

She thought about it for a moment. "Well, I like to sit in bed and read once Leia's asleep, but if I'm too tired for that sometimes I'll go for a movie and a glass of wine."

"What kind of movie?"

"I don't know, depends on my mood. I usually like documentaries or political thrillers, though." Anakin made a face, and Padmé said, "What's wrong with that?"

"It sounds really boring," he said bluntly.

She huffed, which made Anakin snicker. "Then what do _you_ like to watch?"

"Sci-fi, mostly."

"So that's where Luke gets his space obsession."

"And rom-coms," he admitted, and Padmé burst out laughing.

"I wouldn't have expected that of you," she said through her giggles.

"Why not?" Anakin said defensively, though he was also grinning, albeit a little sheepishly. "True love is a beautiful thing. Why should it have a target audience? Besides, it's a nice idea. That everyone has someone they're just…meant to be with."

Padmé looked at him curiously. "Do you believe that?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I'd _like_ to believe it. I'd like to believe that someday I'll meet 'the one,' and I'll know from the very first moment that we're meant to be together."

"That _is_ a nice idea," said Padmé softly, and for some reason they were both blushing and ducking their heads and accidentally making eye contact and blushing harder, but just then a waitress stopped by to refill their coffees and the moment was over.

"What do _you_ like to do in your spare time?" Padmé said after another minute or two. "Aside from watching rom-coms and cooking and fixing laptops."

"I actually enjoy fixing things," Anakin replied. "It's another thing that relaxes me. I guess I just like having my hands busy. And I like making stuff, like, I don't know, wood carvings and that kind of thing. I tried to build a robot once when I was nine, but needless to say, I failed miserably."

He proceeded to regale her with the story, and by the time Kitster returned with their food, Padmé was laughing so hard that she barely managed to get out a "thank you" when he put the plate down in front of her. "Those pancakes _do_ look pretty good," she acknowledged once she'd caught her breath.

"Want a bite?"

"Sure, thanks."

Anakin cut a small piece off and dropped it onto her plate, and when she put it in her mouth, her eyes widened. "This is the most delicious thing I've ever had in my entire life," she said through a mouthful of pancake.

"Told you," he said, smiling. "I'll pass that on to Kitster. It's his secret recipe, you know. But he gave it to me out of pity once last year when Luke went through a phase where he refused to eat anything for breakfast other than Kitster's chocolate chip pancakes. They never come out quite the same when I make them, though, I still think there's some secret ingredient he didn't tell me about."

Padmé chuckled and took a sip of her coffee. "I'll have to bring Leia here soon, she'd love it. And it would definitely be a step up from my cooking."

Anakin politely declined Padmé's offer to try some of her wrap, though he did steal a few French fries off her plate (and she snuck a couple more bites of his pancakes). When the bill arrived, they nearly had a shouting match over who should pay—Padmé eventually won with the argument that the entire purpose of this lunch was to repay him for fixing her laptop, and that purpose would very much be defeated if Anakin was to pay for both their meals. They sat and talked for another half hour after paying the bill, until Anakin said they'd better stop hogging a table or else Kitster would never let him come back again.

He walked Padmé up to the front door once they'd arrived at her house, and both of them lingered on the doorstep for a minute, not wanting to say goodbye. "Thanks for paying," Anakin said. "You really didn't have to do that. I promise I'll make it up to you."

"No, this was _me_ making it up to _you,"_ she reminded him. "We're even now."

He laughed, then gave her a small smile. "I had a really great time."

"So did I." Padmé returned his smile and added hesitantly, "We should do this again sometime."

Anakin's smile grew even wider. So it wasn't just a one-time thing to repay him for doing her a favor, Padmé wanted to spend more time with him. "Definitely."

For one wild moment he wanted to lean in and kiss her, but instead he bade her goodbye and turned to walk back to his car. Anakin spent the entire drive over to Shmi's house to pick up Luke smiling like an idiot and replaying the afternoon in his mind. It had been perfect; he almost couldn't even believe how easily they'd clicked. He'd been on more than enough awkward first dates where they could barely hold a conversation for longer than ten seconds, but this had been about as far from that as you could get.

Except he still had no idea whether or not it had been a date. Either way, one thing _was_ certain: Anakin was falling for her. He was falling _hard._


	4. Chapter 4

**So I got kinda impatient and also there's another fic I want to start posting soon-ish, so I decided to just post the rest of this one all in one go instead of continuing to parcel it out piece by piece :)) Hope you enjoy all the rest! (Note the rating change because of one of the last chapters)**

* * *

As November turned into December, Anakin and Padmé went on a couple more possibly-dates-but-maybe-not. Anakin _was_ still frustrated that he didn't know what they were, but he had such a good time on all of them that it hardly even mattered whether they were official dates or not (though he was kind of assuming they weren't dates since Padmé still hadn't initiated anything flirtatious or romantic). Anakin smugly informed Ahsoka that now he had _five_ friends, thank you very much. He was starting to meet other parents as Luke expanded his social circle, but he just didn't connect with any of them the way he connected with Padmé (and indeed, Luke wasn't as close with any of his other friends as he was with Leia).

"Daddy, can you take me and Leia to see Santa at the mall this weekend?" Luke asked hopefully.

Anakin frowned. "The Naberries are Jewish, Luke. They don't celebrate Christmas or believe in Santa. Leia won't want to go."

"But I asked her at school and she said she wanted to!" Luke insisted.

"Well, I don't know if Ms. Naberrie will want her to go."

"Why not?"

"Because they don't celebrate Christmas," Anakin repeated patiently. "Ms. Naberrie might not be comfortable with Leia going to see Santa since he's part of a holiday they don't celebrate."

"But Christmas is the best! Everyone should celebrate it."

Uh-oh. Time to nip that attitude in the bud. "Luke, every religion has its own holidays and every family has its own traditions, and it's important to respect the ones that are different than yours," Anakin said. "Yes, you and I have a lot of fun on Christmas, but that doesn't mean _everyone_ should celebrate it. The Naberries have their own holidays and traditions that are just as fun and special to them as Christmas is to us. Do you understand?"

Luke nodded but he looked somewhat unconvinced, so Anakin figured he'd better try again. "Let me give you an example," he said. "You just said you feel sorry for Leia because Christmas is fun and she doesn't celebrate it."

"Uh-huh."

"Well, imagine how you'd feel if she said something like that to you. Leia celebrates Hanukkah and you don't, so imagine how you'd feel if she told you that Hanukkah was way more fun than Christmas and she felt sorry for you because you're stuck celebrating Christmas while she gets to celebrate Hanukkah. That wouldn't make you feel very nice, would it?"

Luke shook his head vigorously. "That would make me sad."

"Exactly," Anakin replied. "You wouldn't like someone else saying their traditions are better than yours, so you shouldn't say that to other people either. Treat others the way you want to be treated, just like Mr. Organa always says."

Luke nodded again, much more confidently this time, to Anakin's relief; it was hard trying to break big topics down into simpler pieces that a five-year-old would be able to understand. "So Ms. Naberrie won't want Leia to go see Santa because they celebrate different holidays?" Luke said, returning to the original subject.

"That's right."

Luke looked crestfallen. "But I promised Leia you'd take us and she was really excited, Daddy. She's never been to see Santa before." Then he gasped. "Oh, I bet that's 'cause she doesn't celebrate Christmas!"

"Good detective work, buddy," Anakin said, trying to suppress a laugh. "How about this, I'll call Ms. Naberrie and talk to her about it, but if she doesn't want Leia to go, you have to respect that. Deal?"

"Deal," Luke said, though he was pouting a little.

Once Luke was settled at the kitchen table with a coloring book, Anakin went into the living room and called Padmé. "Hey," he said when she answered.

"Hi. Is this a friend-call or a kid-related-call?"

"The second one," Anakin said, chuckling. "Though I'd like to think every call between us is a friend-call."

"Aww, me too. So what's up?"

"Luke asked me if we could bring Leia with us to see Santa at the mall this weekend," Anakin said carefully. "I explained to him that you and Leia are Jewish and don't celebrate Christmas, but he swears up and down that he already asked Leia and she said she wanted to go. I told him I'd ask you about it, but I _did_ explain to him that you might not want Leia to go, so it's totally fine if you say no, he'll understand."

"Hmm," Padmé said, sounding dubious. "I'm not sure if that's a good idea. I don't want Leia to get confused and expect presents from Santa on December twenty-fifth."

"Yeah, I definitely get that."

"But I'd hate to disappoint Luke."

"Oh, he'll get over it after, like, ten minutes," Anakin assured her. "In fact, it would be a great lesson for him in respecting religious differences."

Padmé laughed. "Well, maybe Leia would get the same lesson if she did go. Not that Santa is a particularly religious figure," she joked. "I'll talk to her about it and call you back."

"Okay."

She called him back an hour later. "Leia's dead set on going, so I figured it couldn't hurt," she said. "But is it all right if I come with you guys too? Just to keep an eye on her and re-explain about why Santa won't actually be coming to our house even though she saw him at the mall."

"Yeah, of course. I'll definitely have more fun if you're there than if I'm chaperoning a pair of kindergartners at the mall all by myself," Anakin said, and they both chuckled.

They made plans for Sunday, and Luke was bouncing off the walls with excitement for the rest of the week. Anakin made sure to explain multiple times about how the Naberries were Jewish and wouldn't be visited by Santa on the twenty-fifth, and fortunately Luke seemed to understand that pretty well. In fact, as Anakin drove all four of them over to the mall on Sunday, Luke fired off a dozen different questions about Judaism to Padmé, who seemed very happy to answer them.

"It's really great that Luke's so curious about other religions. You must've done a good job talking to him about it the other day," she told Anakin once they were waiting in line to see Santa. The kids were standing right in front of them and absorbed in their own conversation, leaving the adults to chat on their own.

"Well, he put me on the spot a little bit the first time, but then I read a bunch of articles online about how to teach your kids about other religions and we had some pretty good conversations after that," Anakin replied. "I mean, I'm not sure how much of the information he'll retain since he's only five, but I think he's at least grasped the concept that there are lots of different religions out there and we should respect the ones that are different from ours, and that's the main thing I was trying to get across anyway."

Padmé smiled at him. "I'm glad you're doing that with him. Leia's already pretty aware of Christianity since about ninety percent of this town is Christian, but it's good to see Christian parents teaching their kids about non-majority religions they might not get that much exposure to in day-to-day life. It's much easier to teach religious toleration to a kid than an adult," she added wryly.

Anakin hummed in agreement. "I think they're about to start a unit on religions in school, right? Or at least about holidays, Luke mentioned something about doing crafts for a lot of different December holidays."

"Oh, yes, Leia and Mr. Organa already joined forces to get me to come in and talk about Hanukkah next week," Padmé said, chuckling. "Leia's so excited. It's actually really sweet. I'm sure it'll only be a few more years before she'll be mortified by the thought of me coming in to talk to her class."

Anakin laughed too. "Yeah, I hear you. Why can't they stay five forever?"

"Honestly."

The line inched forward as slowly as it did every year, but the longer it took, the longer Anakin got to talk to Padmé. And, completely unrelated, it was the first year Anakin was enjoying himself rather than impatiently tapping his foot and thinking about all the other errands he could be running instead. But at last it was their turn, and Luke and Leia happily climbed onto Santa's lap. "I still think it's really weird to have my child sit on a strange man's lap," Padmé whispered.

"Trust me, it's not any less weird for me and this is the third or fourth time we've done it," Anakin whispered back, making her snicker.

"Santa, you can't bring presents to my house because I'm Jewish," Leia announced matter-of-factly, and both parents laughed even louder.

"But _I'm_ not Jewish, so you can bring _me_ presents," Luke said quickly, no doubt worried that Santa would misunderstand and not bring him presents either. He started rattling off a list of everything he wanted, and Padmé helpfully moved in front of Anakin so Luke wouldn't notice him frantically typing everything onto a note on his phone.

"Oh, and one more thing," Luke said after he'd paused for breath. "Can you make my dad and Leia's mom get married?"

Anakin dropped his phone, and he quickly stooped down to pick it back up, feeling his cheeks burning. He straightened up again and darted a glance at Padmé, whose face was also the color of a tomato and who was determinedly not looking at him.

"Please, Santa?" Leia chimed in. "Even though I'm Jewish and you can't bring me presents? I really want them to get married!"

Santa looked like he was trying not to laugh at Anakin and Padmé's obvious mortification. "I'm afraid that's beyond my control," he said solemnly. Then he gave the kids a wink. "But I'll see what I can do."

"Yay!"

"Okay, let's go, Santa's very busy," Anakin interrupted, grabbing Luke's hand and making him hop reluctantly off Santa's lap. "Thank you, Santa."

"Thank you, Santa," Luke echoed.

"Merry Christmas! And happy Hanukkah!" he added to Leia, who beamed at him before allowing Padmé to tug her away.

"Please make them get married, Santa, I want a mom!" Luke hollered as Anakin forcibly dragged him away, face flaming again at all the chortles from other parents in line.

"Luke, Santa already told you that sort of thing isn't his job," Anakin said, doing his best to sound stern and not like he was about to die of embarrassment. "Stop yelling across the mall, it's not polite and you're making a scene."

"But I want to make sure he remembers."

Anakin sighed. "Listen, Luke, we've talked about this before. Ms. Naberrie and I don't want to get married, and that's final. No amount of wishes to Santa will change that."

"But—"

"No. Stop it. I don't want to hear about this again, okay?" Anakin said rather sharply.

Luke heaved a loud and dramatic sigh. "Fine."

Anakin glanced over and realized Padmé and Leia were standing much closer than he'd thought. For a second he thought Padmé looked hurt, but then it was gone again and he figured he must've imagined it. She was probably just embarrassed like Anakin was.

She cleared her throat and checked the time on her phone. "It's almost dinnertime, we should probably head home."

"Yeah, I was about to say the same thing," Anakin said, forcing a smile. "Come on, everyone."

They headed back out to the Skywalkers' car, and the return trip was much quieter than the drive over. Anakin and Padmé were avoiding each other's eyes, and even Luke and Leia didn't have much to say. "Thank you for taking us with you," Padmé said once they'd reached the Naberries' house. "We had a great time, didn't we, Leia?"

"Thanks, Mr. Skywalker," Leia chirped obediently from the backseat.

"No problem. We had fun too," Anakin said with another forced smile. "See you guys at school tomorrow."

The rest of the evening passed uneventfully, and Anakin tucked Luke into bed around eight and read him a story before heading back downstairs. He put the TV on for a little while but didn't pay it much attention, too busy worrying that things would be awkward between him and Padmé now. But surely it would be fine; after all, it was their five-year-old children who'd said they wanted them to get married, not Anakin himself. Hopefully Padmé would just chalk it up to the strange inner workings of kindergartners' minds and not figure out that Anakin actually had feelings for her.

Then again, would it really be so bad if she knew? Anakin's instincts said yes—if she didn't feel the same way it would ruin his friendship with her, and for all he knew their kids would pick up on the tension between them and it would affect _their_ friendship as well. But at the same time, Padmé was the first person in six years that Anakin had even been _interested_ in, and they were already so compatible as friends. Surely that same compatibility would carry over into a romantic relationship. Not to mention that there had been times he'd _thought_ she'd shown interest in him too or even flirted with him, but he just didn't know how reliable his judgment was on that front since he _wanted_ to see signs she returned his feelings and could easily be seeing things that weren't there.

Anakin was stewing in all this when he heard noises coming from Luke's room, faint and muffled but definitely there. Frowning, he turned the TV off and went back upstairs. When he reached the top of the stairs and stepped into the hallway, he realized that the noises were sobs. He hurried down the hall and pushed Luke's door open, finding him huddled underneath the blankets and crying.

Anakin sat down on the bed and reached out to rest his hand on Luke's shoulder. "Hey, what's wrong?" he asked gently.

Luke rolled over and looked at him, his face streaked with tears. "I want a mom," he sobbed. "We—we had to draw a picture of our families in school on Friday and go around and share and all the other kids were saying how much they love their moms and someone even has _two_ moms and—and I don't have _any!"_

Anakin's heart was shattering into a million pieces. "Oh, Luke," he said softly, and he pulled him into a tight embrace. Luke clung to him and sobbed into his shirt, soaking it through with tears, and Anakin sat there quietly with him, rubbing his back and kissing the top of his head as he waited for the tears to stop.

Eventually they did, and Anakin spoke again. "Is this why you're so set on me marrying Ms. Naberrie?" he asked.

Luke sniffled and nodded. "She's so nice and she always lets me have an extra juice box for my after-school snack," he said in a wobbly voice. "If I had a mom I'd want her to be exactly like her."

Anakin was quiet for another minute, trying to figure out how he could possibly comfort Luke about not having a mom. "I know our family's different than a lot of your classmates' families," he said at last. "And I understand if you feel like you're missing something because you only have one parent and most of the other kids have two. But you have Grandma and Ahsoka and Obi-Wan and Kitster and Rex and they all love you so much. And obviously you have me too, and you know what?"

"What?"

"I love you more than enough for two parents. I love you more than enough for a hundred parents," Anakin said, blinking back a few tears of his own. "You think you don't have a mom, but you do. It's me. I'm both your parents, Luke. I'm taking on the job of being your dad _and_ your mom at the same time because I love you so, so much. I promise you, there's nothing a mom could do for you that I can't also do."

Luke sniffled again. "Will you let me have an extra juice box for my after-school snack?"

"No, the sugar's bad for your teeth. You don't want all your teeth to rot and fall out, do you?"

"No," Luke admitted. "That would be gross."

"It would," Anakin agreed. "That's exactly why I don't let you have an extra juice box. See? I'm always looking out for you and doing everything I can to make sure you're healthy and happy and safe."

Luke was silent other than a few hiccups. Then he said in a small voice, "Why did Mommy leave us?"

Anakin sighed. How could he explain to his five-year-old son that his mother didn't want to raise him? "Being a parent is a really big responsibility, and she wasn't ready for it," he said.

"She didn't want me?" Luke said, lower lip wobbling again.

"That's not true," Anakin said firmly, figuring he'd better do some creative truth-stretching so as not to upset Luke any further. "She wanted what was best for you and she knew she wasn't ready to be your mom. She knew she might not do a good job of being your mom. So she decided to leave because she wanted you to have your best chance, and she knew you'd be better off without her."

"I don't get it."

"You know how you always ask me if we can get a dog and I say not until you're old enough to take care of it properly?"

"Yeah."

"Having a child is kind of like that. You might really want a child, but until you're ready to properly take care of one, you shouldn't have one. Some people become ready over time, and other people are never ready. That's why Mommy left. She wasn't ready to take care of you properly and knew she might never be. She thought you'd be better off with only one parent who was ready to take care of you instead of one parent who was and one who wasn't, and she was right."

Luke digested this for a moment. "Oh."

Anakin gave him an encouraging smile and said, "But having just the two of us isn't all bad, is it? We've had some really great times together. Remember when we went to Disney World last summer?"

"That was fun," Luke said, seeming to cheer up at the memory.

"Uh-huh. And the two of us are going to keep having fun and going on adventures together for the rest of our lives, I promise you. You're my number one, buddy. You're the most important person to me in the whole world."

Luke snuggled into his chest. "You're my number one too," he said sleepily after a minute. "I love you, Daddy."

Anakin pressed a tender kiss to his forehead. "I love you too. Now, let's put you back to bed, okay?"

He tucked him in again and stood to go, but Luke reached out and grabbed his hand. "Can you stay until I fall asleep?" he whispered.

Anakin smiled and sat back down. "Of course." He patiently sat there holding Luke's hand until he fell asleep, which happened surprisingly quickly; he must've been tired out from all the crying. Then Anakin gently extracted his hand from Luke's grip, bent down to kiss him goodnight, and tiptoed out of the room.

He felt horrible for snapping at Luke at the mall now that he realized his request to Santa hadn't been an attempt to embarrass Anakin, but rather a plea for some sort of mother figure. Shmi had always filled a maternal role in Luke's life, but a grandmother just wasn't the same as a mother. It was no wonder Luke had latched on to Padmé when she was the only other adult woman he'd spent much time with (aside from Ahsoka, but she wasn't particularly motherly, more of a cool aunt).

It was still fairly early but Anakin was suddenly exhausted, so he headed down the hall to his own room and started getting ready for bed. Logically, he knew it was perfectly reasonable for Luke to want a mother when he was probably one of, if not _the,_ only kids in his class who didn't have one, but Anakin still couldn't help but feel inadequate, as if he alone wasn't good enough for his son. As if he'd failed Luke somehow.

He climbed in bed and curled up under the covers, feeling gloomy. Luke was probably going to have forgotten all about it by the next morning—he was remarkably good at bouncing back after being upset about something—but Anakin could already tell it would be weighing on _his_ mind for a long time. He wished there was an internet parenting forum titled "What to do when your five-year-old embarrasses you in front of your crush by asking Santa if he'll make the two of you get married and then bursts into tears that night and says he just wants a mom and asks why his own mother abandoned him." Anakin had relied heavily on internet parenting forums and websites throughout the years because he'd been having to do it all alone rather than having a partner to consult about tricky issues.

And he was _tired_ of it. He was tired of raising Luke on his own, tired of not having anyone to turn to for advice except for his own mother, who was a phonecall away rather than physically present and whom he tried not to bother with every single little question anyway. Anakin wanted a partner, an equal, someone who would live with him and Luke, someone who would be there every single day. Someone he could turn to immediately when he needed help talking to Luke about religion or family issues or any of the multitude of topics that were going to come up with increasing frequency as Luke got older and became more aware of the world.

And if Anakin was being honest with himself, he wanted that partner to be Padmé. He knew it was stupid because they'd only known each other for two months, it wasn't like he was prepared to make a judgment call about her being The One, the one he wanted to spend his life with. Especially considering they didn't have any semblance of a romantic relationship and Anakin had no idea if she'd even _want_ one with him. But despite all this, he couldn't help but feel in his gut that they were right for each other, that they and Luke and Leia would make a perfect little family unit. That the four of them _belonged_ together as a family, that the Skywalkers and Naberries were two halves of a whole, almost as if they should've been together from the very beginning but the universe had decided to split them up and make them find each other instead.

Well, now they _had_ found each other. And Anakin was sitting on his ass and letting the opportunity pass him by. If he really thought there could be something special between him and Padmé, what the hell was he waiting for?


	5. Chapter 5

The rest of December flew by in a flurry of holiday chaos, and New Year's Eve found the Naberries and the Skywalkers sitting on the couch together in the Naberries' living room, watching the countdown on the TV and waiting for the ball to drop. Or rather, Padmé and Anakin were watching; Luke and Leia had conked out about two hours ago despite their insistences that they really could stay up until midnight.

"Do you think we should wake them up at midnight or just let them sleep?" Anakin whispered.

"Leia's been talking about finally staying up for the new year all day. She'd kill me if I didn't wake her up in time," Padmé whispered back, and he laughed.

So at 11:57, Padmé gently shook Leia awake. "Leia, wake up, sweetie, it's almost midnight."

Leia sleepily blinked her eyes open and yawned. "What time is it?"

"11:57."

She sat bolt upright and scowled at Padmé. "Mommy, I told you not to let me fall asleep!"

"I didn't want you to stay up so far past your bedtime in the first place, so I figured I'd let you doze off for a couple hours," Padmé said mildly. "Besides, I woke you up in time for midnight."

Leia huffed but snuggled back into Padmé's side and turned her attention to the TV while Luke did the same on Anakin's other side after being woken up as well. At last the countdown reached the final minute, then the final seconds.

"Five!" all four of them chanted along with the TV. "Four! Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!"

The kids cheered excitedly and the parents laughed at their enthusiasm; Padmé missed the days when she'd get excited about the new year rather than feeling like it was just any other day. Then Leia tugged on Padmé's sleeve and said rather slyly, "Mommy, Auntie Sola says you're supposed to kiss someone you love at midnight on New Year's."

Padmé was suddenly hyperaware of how close to her Anakin was sitting since they were in the middle with the kids on either side rather than the other way around (she suspected Luke and Leia had done it on purpose to further their matchmaking scheme). She glanced at him and saw him looking at her likewise, and he shifted his position ever so slightly and suddenly their legs were brushing against each other and Padmé's heart was racing and her gaze was instinctively flickering down to his lips and—

 _Ms. Naberrie and I don't want to get married, and that's final. I don't want to hear about this again, okay?_

And Padmé suddenly remembered how irritated Anakin had seemed at the mall by Luke and Leia saying they wanted them to get married. She quickly turned her head and smiled down at Leia. "Well, I guess I'll have to kiss _you_ then," she said, leaning down and pecking her on the cheek, which made Leia giggle.

When she straightened back up she saw that Anakin had followed her lead and given Luke a kiss, and just like that the moment between them was gone. Padmé didn't know if she was relieved or disappointed.

School started up again on January second, and normal routines were quickly resumed. Leia's sixth birthday was at the end of the month, and she invited the whole class to her princess-themed party. Almost everyone was able to make it and the party was a smashing success, to Leia's delight and Padmé's relief (she was sure kindergarten birthday parties hadn't been such high-pressure social events back in her day). The cake was beautiful: chocolate with purple frosting, decorated with several frosting flowers and tiaras, the words _Happy Birthday Leia,_ and six candles. Anakin had made it; Padmé had been fretting to him about getting a cake for the party because she wasn't an especially good baker but she didn't want to settle for a store-bought cake for Leia's birthday, and he'd immediately offered to make one and refused to take no for an answer. Anakin painstakingly baking and decorating a cake for _her_ daughter's birthday did funny things to Padmé's heart, but she tried not to think about it too much.

Though as the weeks passed, not thinking about her feelings for Anakin became harder and harder to do. They continued having get-togethers of unidentified nature after a brief respite for the holidays (and to allow them time to recover from the awkwardness of The Santa Incident). Padmé also had no idea if they were dates or not, and at this point she was too afraid to ask. Anakin never asked her either, which made her worry that he felt perfectly clear about the platonic nature of their relationship and that the attraction between them was all in her head.

On the other hand, though she had never been especially good at picking up on whether or not someone was interested in her, she couldn't shake the feeling that Anakin _was_ interested. Padmé had been late to work on multiple occasions because Anakin was so reluctant to get back in his own car every morning after they dropped off Leia and Luke at school, he smiled every time he saw her, he sometimes said things that seemed vaguely flirtatious and always turned bright red after saying them, and Padmé was pretty sure she'd caught him staring at her more than once when he thought she wasn't looking.

But then she'd always remember his reaction to The Santa Incident, how he'd sternly told Luke he wasn't interested in Padmé. Logically she knew that only made sense—it wasn't like Anakin would confess it to Luke if he actually did have feelings for Padmé, especially when she was standing right there—but it still made her stomach twist in knots when she remembered it. He'd seemed so genuinely annoyed by the whole thing. Then again, Padmé had been pretty annoyed by it too, not because she wasn't interested in Anakin but because she _was_ and was embarrassed that their children had brought it up so publicly. After all, she'd given Leia a bit of a talking-to herself when they'd gotten home that evening. So maybe Anakin wasn't annoyed by the thought of marrying Padmé, but rather annoyed that their kids had embarrassed him by saying so in front of her? It was all so confusing.

Sola thought she should just straight-up tell Anakin she was attracted to him and ask if he felt the same way, as did Sabé, Satine, and the rest of her friends, but that was the last thing Padmé wanted to do. Well, no, she _did_ want to get to the bottom of everything once and for all, but she wished there was a way to do it that didn't involve potentially humiliating herself in front of her new yet very close friend, who also happened to be the parent of her daughter's new yet very close friend.

Not to mention that out of all the parents Padmé had met as Leia began making more friends, Anakin was the only one she could even remotely stand, and she didn't want to risk making their relationship uncomfortable because then she'd have no one. The other parents raised their eyebrows upon discovering her single mother status and said "Ah, I understand" in tones that made it clear they _didn't_ understand, or perhaps that they understood but were still judging her. Not Anakin, though. He understood better than anyone, better even than Padmé's family and other friends, none of whom were single parents themselves and therefore couldn't fully know what it was like.

She (and her friends and Sola) had thought Anakin was perfect for her even a mere week after they'd first met, and as time passed, her conviction of the fact only grew stronger. Wouldn't mind that she had a kid? Check. Not only wouldn't mind, but was actually _good_ with kids? Check. Got along well with Leia? Check. Wouldn't walk out on Padmé or abandon her? Check, though admittedly she'd been wrong about _that_ before. Wanted to find a committed, long-term partner to settle down with? Check, judging by what he'd said when talking about Luke's mother, as well as several other throwaway comments throughout the past few months. And especially if his adoration of rom-coms was anything to go by (they'd watched one together once, and Anakin sniffling all the way through the final love declaration scene had been so endearing that Padmé hadn't even had the heart to make fun of him).

In addition, of course, he also possessed all the more general things Padmé would look for in a partner. He was kind and funny and easy to talk to, and even after only a few months she felt like she could tell him anything, like he truly knew her. And he was also _extremely_ good-looking. Padmé liked to think she wasn't so shallow that good looks played a major part in whether or not she'd want to date someone, but she was also human, and she couldn't exactly deny that his appearance was a pro on her Should I Date Anakin list (yes, she'd really made a physical written list and stuffed it on the top shelf of her closet where there was no chance of Leia finding it).

The list had an overwhelming number of pros and very few cons; the only ones were "might ruin friendship if it doesn't work out," "might negatively affect kids if it doesn't work out," "bad taste in movies," and "makes fun of me for being a bad cook." (The fact that _he_ was a good cook was on the pro side, naturally).

Padmé kept editing and adding to her list as the weeks passed, and soon it was February and she still hadn't made up her mind about whether or not she should make a move. But she was temporarily sidetracked on one day in particular: February twentieth, her own birthday. She'd always felt there was the perfect amount of space between her and Leia's birthdays; they were close enough that the whole beginning of the year felt like a festive birthday season, but far enough apart that one didn't overshadow the other.

It was Sunday, and Leia was spending the afternoon at the Skywalkers' house without her mother; Padmé tried not to take it personally, and Leia _had_ made up for it slightly by bursting into her room that morning and jumping on the bed and yelling "Happy birthday, Mommy!" Not that Padmé was necessarily thrilled about getting woken up at seven AM on a Sunday, but it was the thought that counted. Plus, she'd gone downstairs to find a small pile of clumsily-wrapped presents on the kitchen table, and Leia had practically bounced up and down in excitement as Padmé opened them. There had been some store-bought things that Leia had no doubt obtained thanks to her aunt's or grandparents' help, but to Padmé, the most valuable gift had been the several stapled pages of drawings Leia had done of the two of them together. The artistic interpretations were… _creative,_ to say the least, but even so Padmé had teared up upon opening it.

So because of all of that, she tried not to be upset by the fact that Leia was spending a good chunk of Padmé's birthday with Anakin and Luke, not to mention that Leia had also specifically told Padmé she didn't want her to come. Padmé and Anakin didn't always stay at the other's houses every time their kids had playdates nowadays, but they still often did if they weren't busy, and never before had Padmé's presence been _rejected_ by her daughter. Leia was only six. Surely it was much too soon for her to start growing less attached to her mother.

Little did Padmé know that this wasn't the case at all; in fact, it was quite the opposite. She arrived at the Skywalkers' to pick Leia up around three o'clock, and she waited on the doorstep for a few minutes before Anakin finally answered the door. "Sorry, I was helping the kids with something," he said rather vaguely.

"That's all right," Padmé replied, brow furrowing slightly as she saw that Anakin seemed weirdly excited. He beckoned her inside, and she couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed that he didn't wish her a happy birthday. She hadn't actually told him when her birthday was so he had no reason to know it was that day, but still, she'd held out a bit of hope that he _would_ know, somehow. After all, they _were_ friends on Facebook.

The house was suspiciously quiet, and as Anakin led her towards the kitchen, Padmé wondered if Leia and Luke were playing in the backyard. It was very cold, but on the other hand, it had snowed a few days previously, so maybe they'd wanted to go make a snowman or something. When they walked into the kitchen, it was nearly pitch-black. Not only were the lights off, but the shades were also down, blocking out all the sunlight, and Padmé's confusion increased. What was going on?

And then the lights suddenly flicked back on, and—

"Surprise!"

"Happy birthday, Mommy!"

Padmé shrieked in alarm, much to her embarrassment, but a moment later she gasped as she saw Anakin, Leia, and Luke all beaming at her, a cake sitting on the table behind them.

"What?" she spluttered. "Why—how—?"

"It was my idea," Leia said proudly. "When Luke asked if I could come over today, I said I couldn't 'cause it was your birthday, but then he said his dad was really good at cooking and maybe we could come over and he could make you a cake, and then I said I wanted to help make it but it should be a surprise, so that's why you weren't allowed to come with me."

"We all baked the cake together." Anakin grinned. "And by that I mean I baked the cake and these two almost ate all the frosting while I wasn't looking."

"We helped!" Luke said indignantly. "We stirred for a whole _minute,_ remember?"

"You're right. How could I forget such an important contribution?" Anakin shook his head, still grinning. "Anyway, happy birthday, Padmé."

"Happy birthday, Ms. Naberrie," Luke chimed in.

Padmé hugged all three of them individually, trying to ignore the small flutter her heart did when it was Anakin's turn. "I can't believe you did all this for me," she said, smiling broadly. "It was so thoughtful. Thank you."

They dug into the cake—chocolate with chocolate frosting, which Leia must have told Anakin was Padmé's favorite—and after they'd finished eating Padmé gave in to Leia's pleading to stay just a little longer, and the kids dashed upstairs to play in Luke's room while the parents moved to chat in the living room.

"That was _delicious._ Thank you so much, Ani," Padmé said again. The corners of Anakin's mouth quirked up slightly, which puzzled her. "What?"

"Nothing. It's just, that's the first time you've called me Ani," he said.

"Oh," she said, a little embarrassed. The nickname had just slipped out without her even realizing. "Sorry."

"What for?"

"Didn't you say Ani was embarrassing?"

"Yeah, from my mom and Kitster, but…" He turned a little pink and finished, "But not from you."

"Oh," Padmé repeated, feeling something very akin to the proverbial butterflies in one's stomach.

"So, thirty-four," Anakin said a minute later.

"Yeah," she said, sighing. "I'm getting up there. I'll start getting wrinkles soon enough."

"Oh, please. You don't look a day over twenty-five."

Padmé snorted. "Yeah, right."

"I'm serious," he insisted. "Padmé, you're _beautiful."_

Anakin's face immediately went redder than she'd ever seen it (and that was saying something), and Padmé was also flushing deeply, the butterflies kicking into high gear. "Th-thank you," she managed after a moment.

He mumbled something incoherent in response, then cleared his throat and said, "I just remembered, I have something for you. For your birthday."

"You do?" said Padmé as he went into the other room for a second and came back to sit beside her once more on the sofa with a small wrapped box in his hands. "Oh, Anakin, you didn't have to do that."

"Well, I wanted to," he replied with a smile, passing her the present.

Padmé carefully unwrapped it and lifted the lid off the box. There was a necklace inside, an engraved wooden pendant dangling on a chain. She picked it up and ran her thumb over the carvings, marveling at the skilled craftsmanship. "It's beautiful," she murmured, raising her eyes back to Anakin and smiling. "Thank you. Where did you find this? I've never seen anything like it."

Anakin smiled too and rubbed the back of his neck, looking both embarrassed and pleased. "I actually—um, I actually made it myself."

"Really?" Padmé looked back down, the necklace suddenly growing a thousand times more precious with the knowledge that Anakin had carved it by hand, for _her._ "That's—Anakin, that's incredible. You did an amazing job. Thank you. This—this really means a lot to me."

He didn't reply, but his smile widened, and Padmé unfastened the necklace so she could put it on. As she struggled to pull her long, thick hair out of the way with one hand and put the necklace on with the other, Anakin wordlessly took it from her, draped it around her neck, and fastened it in the back. His fingers brushed against her skin, and the butterflies in her stomach returned with a vengeance.

Padmé turned back around to face him, heartbeat speeding up when she realized how close together they'd moved. Their legs and hips were touching, and if she were to just lean forward ever so slightly…

She didn't know which one of them initiated the motion, but suddenly their lips were meeting in a kiss. Padmé's eyes fluttered shut, and she was no longer conscious of anything but Anakin, his warm, soft mouth on hers, his hands hesitantly coming to rest on her hips, the way he smelled, a startlingly intoxicating combination of laundry detergent and cake batter.

After several long seconds, they slowly, slowly drew away from each other, but only a little bit. Anakin's cheeks were pink, his lips slightly parted, eyes full of openness and vulnerability. "Anakin," Padmé said softly, heart going a million miles an hour. "Anakin, I—I really like you."

Anakin inhaled slightly and gazed at her in surprise, looking like he hardly dared believe it. "So do I," he said after a second. "That is, I really like _you,_ not myself. I mean, I _do_ like myself, you know, self-esteem and all that, but—"

Padmé cut him off with a breathless laugh. "Really? You—you feel the same way?"

He nodded, a shy smile spreading across his face. "I've been trying to work up the courage to ask you out for weeks now. _Months,"_ he said sheepishly. "Honestly, I—I think I've had feelings for you since the day we met. I know that sounds cliché and stupid, but—"

"No, that's exactly what happened to me too," Padmé interrupted, smiling back at him. "You probably don't remember this but we actually met briefly on the first day of school, and as soon as I got to work that day I started telling a couple of my coworkers about this really attractive dad I'd just met."

"Oh, no, I remember that very well," Anakin said, shy smile morphing into a more confident grin now that he was certain Padmé really did return his feelings. "I went up to ask you where Mr. Organa's class was and I almost passed out on the spot when you turned around because you were so beautiful. Then I spent the next few weeks swooning over you every morning, so you can imagine how I felt when Luke introduced me to his new friend and it turned out her mom was you."

"I can definitely imagine how you felt because I was feeling something pretty similar," Padmé said, and they both laughed.

They simply sat there smiling goofily at each other for a minute, and then Anakin said, "So now that we've established we both have feelings for each other, can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"You know all those times we've hung out just the two of us without our kids? When we'd have lunch or get coffee or watch a movie or whatever?"

"Yeah."

"Were those friend-dates or date-dates?" Anakin asked. "Because I've been trying to figure it out this whole time and I could never tell."

Padmé burst out laughing. "I have no idea," she confessed.

"What do you mean, you have no idea? You're the one who initiated the first one, you should know if you meant it romantically or platonically," he said indignantly.

She shrugged helplessly, still giggling. "At that point I'd decided to spend a long time getting to know you before I started thinking about dating you, but then I accidentally asked you out after, like, a week," she said. "I think subconsciously I _had_ meant it romantically but I didn't want to admit it to myself since I still barely knew you, and then _you_ introduced me to Kitster as your friend instead of your date so I figured you must've assumed I'd meant it platonically and I just went along with it."

"I only did that because I wasn't about to introduce you as my date and make things all weird when it turned out you hadn't meant it as a date-date," Anakin replied. "I was just playing it safe. Too safe, apparently, since we've both spent this whole time hoping they were romantic dates but being too afraid to actually ask each other."

"Hey, in my defense, I totally flirted with you on most of them and you were pretty unresponsive."

"What? You did not!"

"I did so! I told you your nickname was cute—"

"I thought you were just making fun of it."

"—and when you were talking about rom-coms I asked if you believed in true love and soulmates and all that—"

"Wait, that was flirting?" Anakin said, looking astonished. "I thought you were just making conversation."

Padmé shook her head in disbelief. "What about when you gave me a whole list of rom-coms to pick from during our movie night and I specifically picked the one about two single parents who fall for each other when their kids become friends and then I spent the entire time dropping hints that I was into you?"

"What hints?"

"Wow, you are _oblivious."_

"It's not my fault, I'm just really bad at this sort of thing," Anakin whined. "Subtle flirting isn't my strong suit."

"Yeah, no kidding. You hand-carved me an incredible necklace for my birthday and straight-up called me beautiful. Definitely not subtle."

"Well, what am I supposed to do, lie and say you're not beautiful?"

Padmé smiled at him and tentatively took his hand, smile widening when he accepted the touch and shifted even closer to her. "I'm just teasing you," she said. "I like that you're not subtle, it's refreshing. I've had enough of smooth-talking guys who lure me in and then run off the second I get pregnant."

"I would never do something like that to you. I promise," Anakin said, so frankly that Padmé's heart swelled. He reached out to gently tuck a piece of hair behind her ear, and he left his hand on her cheek as he leaned in and kissed her again.

They kissed contentedly for several minutes, but when Anakin spoke next his tone was nervous. "Do you want to—what do you say we go on a _real_ date? One where we both know it's a date."

"Yes," Padmé said immediately, and he looked relieved and delighted. "That sounds wonderful."

He beamed and kissed her again, Padmé eagerly pulling him closer and kissing him back. It was lucky that Leia and Luke were happily occupied upstairs because their parents spent the next half hour or so entwined on the couch kissing, only surfacing for air when Padmé got a call from her mother demanding to know where she and Leia were, seeing as they _should_ have been at Ruwee and Jobal's house fifteen minutes ago for Padmé's birthday celebration.

"Guess I have to go," Padmé said sheepishly after she'd hung up. She gave Anakin one last, lingering kiss, heart so full it felt like it could burst, and reluctantly drew away again, then stood up to find her purse and call upstairs to Leia.

"I'll see you at school tomorrow," Anakin said as they waited for the kids. "But maybe—maybe I'll call you tonight?"

Padmé smiled. "Okay. We can start to plan for our first real date."

They both chuckled again, and Leia and Luke arrived a moment later. The Skywalkers wished Padmé a happy birthday once more, and then she and Leia headed out the door and got in the car, Leia chattering on about how much fun she and Luke had had. Padmé was pretty sure she'd had an even better time than Leia, but she kept silent and listened. There was no need to get the kids involved _quite_ yet. But maybe once they got to her parents' house, she'd pull Sola aside to tell her what had happened.


	6. Chapter 6

Anakin was walking on air for the rest of the day, and he and Padmé exchanged a secretive smile when they saw each other at school the next morning. They didn't let on that anything had changed in front of Luke and Leia, but once they'd gone inside the school and Anakin had walked Padmé back to her car, he glanced around to make sure no one was looking and gave her a quick peck on the lips, making her blush and giggle and scold him for trying to distract her and make her late for work.

He excitedly filled Obi-Wan and Ahsoka in on everything that had happened as soon as he got to work, and they were thrilled by the news (and possibly also by the thought that Anakin would finally stop whining and pining over Padmé). But they promised not to tell anyone else for the time being seeing as Anakin didn't actually have a definite idea of where he and Padmé stood yet, other than that they both had feelings for each other and liked kissing each other and were planning to go on a real date.

He told Kitster as well, who just laughed and said _"Finally"_ (Anakin and Padmé had been going to Kitster's frequently over the past few months, and apparently the entire staff had bets going as to how long it would take them to get together). Other than the three of them and Rex, though, Anakin kept quiet about it, not wanting to tell Shmi until he knew for sure the relationship was going somewhere and not wanting to tell Luke until things were serious enough that he needed to know.

He and Padmé planned for dinner the following Friday, and Anakin selected a nice restaurant downtown. "What do you think of that?" he asked Obi-Wan and Ahsoka after they'd made the plans. "I wasn't sure what restaurant to pick but Padmé seemed to like that one when I suggested it."

"Dinner at a nice restaurant for a first date," Ahsoka mused. "Bold move."

"What? Why?" Anakin asked, starting to panic. "I-I just thought it would be nice to go somewhere a little fancier for a change since we've already been to Kitster's a million times—"

"No, no, I'm sure she'll love it," Ahsoka said hastily. "I was just remembering that when Riyo and I were planning our first date I read a bunch of articles online advising against eating at a fancy restaurant in case you ended up not clicking and sitting there in awkward silence the whole time. But you and Padmé already know each other really well and get along great, so that won't be a problem for you guys."

"Oh," Anakin said, chewing his lip anxiously. "Are you sure? Because I could call her back and say I thought of a better date idea—"

"No, trust your gut," Ahsoka interrupted. "You know Padmé and your relationship way better than I do, so if your instinct was that she'd like a fancy restaurant, stick with that. Plus, taking her somewhere nice and spending extra money on her will show her that you're really invested in the relationship. That would be kind of awkward for a first date with someone you met on, like, a dating app and barely know yet, but it's a good thing for someone you've known a while and are already close with."

"Ahsoka's right, I'm sure Padmé will love the gesture," said Obi-Wan, nodding. "Besides, from what you've told me she seems like the sort of person who'd appreciate the chance to dress up and go somewhere nice."

That was definitely true; she was always impeccably dressed even when bringing Leia over for a playdate on a weekend afternoon. Anakin was soothed, though his nerves mounted again as the date approached. He hoped Padmé wouldn't think it was overkill. He didn't want to put too much pressure on the first date and freak her out…then again, they kind of already _had_ been on numerous casual dates even if they weren't official date-dates, so it seemed reasonable that now would be a good time to up the ante a little bit.

Friday evening after much deliberation, Anakin put on a dress shirt, jacket, and pants, though he decided to forego a tie, thinking that might be a bit much. "Why are you fancy?" Luke asked when he came downstairs.

"I'm going to a fancy restaurant with a friend and you have to dress fancy when you go to a fancy restaurant," Anakin replied, flicking a piece of lint off his jacket. Then he turned to Rex, who'd arrived a few minutes earlier. "Luke's bedtime's around eight, and he usually likes to read a story beforehand. He already had dinner, so you guys can just play a game or something for the rest of the night. But if he gets hungry later—"

"I got it covered," Rex assured him. "I've been babysitting Luke for five years, and you already left me very detailed instructions on the kitchen table, including a list of acceptable snacks should Luke get hungry again before bed."

"Oh. Yeah. But I just want to make sure everything goes okay."

"Don't worry about us, you just focus on making sure your da—ah, dinner goes well," Rex said, catching himself before he accidentally told Luke Anakin was going on a date. "Luke and I will have lots of fun here, won't we, kiddo?"

"Yeah!"

"All right," Anakin said; one of the consequences of raising Luke entirely on his own was that he turned into a massive worrier whenever he had to leave him with someone who wasn't himself for an extended period of time. He leaned down and gave Luke a kiss on the forehead. "Be good for Rex, okay? You'll be asleep by the time I get home, but maybe tomorrow morning we can go to Kitster's for breakfast."

"Yay, Kitster's!" Luke cheered. Anakin chuckled and ruffled his hair before heading out the door, stomach twisting itself in knots as he drove over to Padmé's house.

He parked by the sidewalk and went up to ring the bell, trying not to fidget. Padmé opened the door a minute later, and Anakin felt all the breath get knocked out of him. "Wow," he breathed, gazing at her in awe. She was wearing a knee-length black dress that hugged her body without being too tight, though it still showed off her figure much more than any of the work clothes or more casual outfits Anakin had seen her wear before. He did his best to be a gentleman and refrain from ogling her, but he couldn't entirely help it. She looked stunning.

Padmé glanced down at her outfit a little nervously. "Too much? I wasn't sure the restaurant was quite this fancy, but, you know, being a single mom and all, I haven't gotten the chance to really dress up in the longest time and I've been dying to wear this dress for ages."

So Anakin had been right to think she'd appreciate a fancier date. Score. "No, it's perfect," he said, smiling at her. "Padmé, you look _incredible."_

She blushed a little and smiled back, and Anakin shyly kissed her on the cheek before taking her hand and leading her to his car. As they drove to the restaurant, conversation was a bit more stilted than usual, but Anakin tried not to worry too much about that. He was so nervous he could barely form a sentence, and if Padmé felt anything like he did that would easily explain the awkwardness; he was sure their nerves would relax as the date progressed and everything would go back to how it usually was between them.

Indeed, by the time their drinks arrived the natural flow of conversation had resumed. "Is it weird that I feel more comfortable on an official date in a fancy restaurant than I did on our first friend-date to Kitster's?" Padmé asked.

Anakin laughed. "I do too, actually." He _was_ still nervous, but it was nowhere near the wreck he'd been that time at Kitster's. "I think it helps that we've explicitly confirmed this is a date and that we have feelings for each other," he added. "At Kitster's we were both sitting there wondering whether or not it was a date and whether or not the other person was interested in us romantically."

"Very true, that uncertainty definitely didn't help my nerves," Padmé said with a chuckle. She took a sip of her wine and hummed appreciatively. "This might be the best wine I've ever tasted. Do you want a sip?"

Anakin shook his head. "No thanks, I don't really like wine. I don't really like most alcohol, actually."

"Really?" Padmé said in surprise. She nodded at his water. "I assumed you only ordered that because you're driving."

"Nah, I genuinely don't drink very much," Anakin said. "I tried to in college because that's what everyone was doing, but alcohol just tastes so _bad._ I don't understand why everyone pretends to like it."

"Well, I'm sure that the expensive wine at this fancy restaurant tastes a lot better than the cheap beer you had at college parties, but to each his own," Padmé said, grinning and taking another sip. "Anyway, this is good news because now I can drink on all our dates and you'll always be able to drive me home."

Anakin joined in her laughter, heart fluttering at the implication that she hoped to go on many more dates with him in the future. He had to admit he'd been a little worried about the date dragging too long after what Ahsoka had said, but time ended up flying by, too _fast_ if anything. They'd finished their dinners and were waiting for dessert when he finally decided to bring up the conversation he'd been meaning to have with Padmé all night but had been too nervous.

"So, about us," he began. "I was thinking we shouldn't tell Luke and Leia right away in case things don't work out. I-I mean, obviously I really hope things _do_ work out, but I thought just to be safe—"

"I agree," Padmé interrupted with a smile. "Let's just…take things slow for now. See where this takes us. And once we've gotten a feel for how it'll be, us being together, then we can decide whether or not we want to seriously pursue this relationship. And if we both do, _then_ we can tell our kids."

Anakin nodded in agreement, relieved they were both on the same page. He didn't want to give Padmé the impression that he wasn't interested in building a lasting relationship with her, but he also didn't want to make things too serious too soon and risk scaring her off. "Dating's so much harder with kids," he said wryly, making her laugh.

"God, I know. I've been reading parenting forums all week about how to date when you have young kids. It's so _complicated,"_ Padmé said, shaking her head. "It's like, you shouldn't get them involved too soon, but it also feels weird _not_ to tell them, you know?"

"Uh-huh. I told Luke I was just going to dinner with 'a friend,' I didn't even say it was you because I was scared he'd somehow put the pieces together before we were ready for him to know. And I definitely didn't like lying to him like that even though I know it's for the best." Padmé made a noise of agreement, and then Anakin said, "So you read parenting forums too? I'm addicted to them."

" _Yes,_ so am I," Padmé said, laughing. "To be fair, you kind of don't have a choice as a single parent, especially when it's your first kid and you already don't know what you're doing. I can't call my parents or my sister every single time I have a question, they'd kill me."

"Honestly," Anakin said. He held his water glass up for a toast. "To single parenthood and parenting forums." Padmé laughed again and clinked her glass against his.

All too soon they were back at Padmé's house, and Anakin walked her up to the door. "I had an amazing time," she said, still holding his hand. "Thank you for suggesting that restaurant, and for paying, and for driving me."

Anakin smiled. "Of course. I had an amazing time too." He licked his lips and added a little nervously, "Are you free next weekend? Maybe we could do something else?"

Padmé beamed so sincerely that his nerves immediately abated. "I'd love to. I think I'm free, but I'll check and let you know."

"Okay." He leaned in and pressed his lips against hers, closing his eyes as Padmé eagerly kissed him back and snaked her arms around his neck. Anakin wrapped his around her waist and pulled her closer, reveling in the moment and not wanting it to end.

But eventually he forced himself to break the kiss and step back. "I should head home, it's getting pretty late," he said. "I'll see you at the playdate on Sunday."

"I can't wait," Padmé said, darting in for one last peck on the lips before letting him turn around and walk back to his car with a spring in his step. That was without a doubt the best first date Anakin had ever been on. If that was a sign for how their relationship would be going forward, things were looking very promising.

* * *

The next few weeks passed quickly. Padmé was caught up in the dreamy haze of new romance, and she wouldn't have wanted to come down even if her life depended on it. The weekend after their first date they went to an art museum (Padmé kept trying to tell Anakin about the history behind certain works but he'd just make up his own ridiculous interpretations until they were both laughing hysterically in the middle of the gallery and attracting frowns from their fellow visitors) and the weekend after _that_ they went bowling (Padmé was competitive and a sore loser but also a terrible bowler, which made Anakin tease her to no end all evening).

Saturday night two weeks later, Anakin came over after Leia had gone to bed and he and Padmé cooked dinner together. It was pretty late by then and Padmé was getting very hungry (and had had to make up a vague excuse for Leia as to why she wasn't eating with her), but the fun of cooking a meal with Anakin more than made up for that. They made a delicious pasta dish that Anakin claimed to be his specialty; it was pretty complicated and Padmé ended up not doing much but stir the pot and toss the salad out of fear that she'd ruin the meal by accident.

But everything turned out well, and after they finished eating they moved into the living room to snuggle on the couch for a little while before Anakin had to go. Padmé leaned against him and rested her head on his shoulder, and Anakin took the opportunity to bend down and kiss her. She hummed contentedly into his mouth and deepened the kiss after a few minutes, and Anakin parted his lips to let her tongue enter.

Then Padmé shifted her position until she was in his lap, and just like that the lazy energy between them turned fiery. Anakin wrapped his arms around her and slid his hands down until they were cupping her ass, and Padmé pulled away from the kiss just long enough to gasp quietly before diving back in with renewed intensity. She started rocking her hips a little bit, causing Anakin to groan into her mouth. His left hand squeezed her ass even harder, and his right wandered back up and slipped under her shirt and moved higher and higher—

"Moooom-myyyy!"

They jerked away from each other, panting slightly, and Padmé was so disoriented that it took her a second to realize that the voice had come from upstairs. She sighed and gave Anakin an apologetic look before climbing off his lap and heading out to the front hall.

Padmé reached the bottom of the stairs and looked up to see Leia standing at the top. "What is it, Leia?" she asked, trying not to sound impatient. "You should be asleep, it's late."

"I had a bad dream," Leia said tearfully.

Padmé's heart immediately melted, and she quickly mounted the stairs. Once she'd reached the top, she knelt down and pulled Leia in for a hug. "It's all right, sweetie. It wasn't real," Padmé said soothingly, giving her a kiss. "I'm here. You're safe."

Leia just sniffled and clung to her. A minute later she said in a small voice, "Will you check my room for monsters?"

"Of course." Padmé straightened back up and took Leia's hand. "Come on, let's go take a look."

Leia hovered in the doorway as Padmé made a show of checking under her bed and in the closet before declaring, "All clear. No monsters."

"Are you _sure?"_

"Positive." Padmé sat down on Leia's bed and patted it encouragingly. "Now, are you ready to go back to sleep? You don't want to be tired tomorrow morning, do you?"

Leia shook her head and hesitantly crossed the room and climbed back in bed. Padmé pulled the blankets over her and took extra care tucking her in. "Do you ever have bad dreams?" Leia asked, looking up at her with wide eyes.

Padmé nodded. "Sometimes, and I get scared by them just like you do. But then I wake up and remind myself that none of the things in the dream actually happened in real life, and I feel better again."

Leia appeared slightly cheered by that, and Padmé reached for her favorite stuffed dog and held it out to her. Leia took it and hugged it tight, and Padmé bent down and kissed her forehead. "Go back to sleep and have good dreams now, all right?" she murmured. "And remember I'm here keeping you safe."

"Can you leave the hall light on?" Leia said.

"Sure." Padmé gave her one last kiss and said softly, "Sweet dreams, Leia. I love you."

"I love you too, Mommy."

Padmé stood back up and turned the light off before tiptoeing out of the room, leaving the door slightly ajar and keeping the hall light on as promised. She hurried back downstairs and into the living room, hoping Anakin wasn't too upset about the interruption.

He was still sitting on the couch and absentmindedly scrolling through something on his phone, though he looked up and pocketed it as he saw Padmé approaching. "Everything okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, sorry about that. She just had a nightmare," Padmé explained.

To her relief, Anakin smiled understandingly, but even so there was some awkwardness in the air thanks to the unresolved sexual tension between them. "It's fine, don't worry about it. I understand better than anyone," he said with a small chuckle, which Padmé returned. She was just about to hopefully suggest they pick up where they'd left off when Anakin added, "Speaking of kids, I should probably head home. Kitster's babysitting Luke and I don't want to keep him up too late, he's got an early shift at the restaurant tomorrow."

"Oh. Yeah, of course," Padmé said, doing her best to hide her disappointment. She followed Anakin out to the front hall and watched as he put his shoes and coat on.

He turned back to her and kissed her on the cheek. "I had a great time tonight."

"Me too. And I really am sorry about Leia," Padmé added.

"Seriously, Padmé, it's fine. I have a five-year-old too, you know. I know exactly what parenting entails," Anakin said with another little laugh. "Kids have to come first."

"Yeah," Padmé said, though a teeny tiny part of her brain couldn't help but whisper that dating would be so much easier if she didn't have a kid. "I'll see you at school on Monday. Have a good rest of the weekend."

"Thanks, you too. Goodnight."

"'Night."

Once the door had shut behind him, Padmé puttered around downstairs for a while before heading upstairs again. She poked her head in Leia's room on the way to her own bedroom and was pleased to see that she was sound asleep. As she gazed at the angelically peaceful expression on her sleeping daughter's face, Padmé was overwhelmed with guilt and remorse for her previous frustration with Leia for having gotten in the way of her love life. Yes, she cared about Anakin very much, but Leia…Leia was her entire world. And it wasn't as if she'd purposely chosen to have a nightmare at the worst possible time.

Still, as she finally got into bed, Padmé's thoughts turned back to the heated moment on the couch. They'd had makeout sessions before, but none of the previous ones had had the same intensity, the same _desperation_ as this one. How far would they have gone if they hadn't been interrupted? Padmé was suddenly thankful Leia _had_ interrupted when she did; if she'd waited much longer she could've ended up walking in on something very much not meant for her eyes.

The more Padmé thought about it, the more sure she was that she wanted to take that step. She wanted to sleep with Anakin. And if his enthusiasm that night was anything to go by, he felt the same way. But just waiting until their kids were asleep wasn't good enough, they'd have to somehow manage to find a time when neither of them was even in the house. The thought of Leia or Luke walking in on her and Anakin at a most inopportune moment was going to fuel Padmé's own nightmares for weeks.


	7. Chapter 7

Padmé made up her mind to talk to Anakin as soon as possible, so when they left the schoolyard Monday morning and returned to their cars to chat for a minute before heading to work, she cleared her throat and said, "Hey, there's actually something I wanted to talk to you about."

"Sure," Anakin said, looking curious.

"Okay. So…the other night," Padmé began hesitantly. There was nothing to be embarrassed about, she told herself sternly, she just needed to come out and say it. "The other night, on the couch, I, um, I—I wanted to go further but then Leia interrupted us. So I was wondering…um, Leia's sleeping over at my sister's house Saturday night so I thought maybe—maybe you could come over and spend the night? If you wanted?"

Anakin's eyes widened, and Padmé was so anxious she thought she might actually die. What if he thought it was too soon? What if he thought it was too _late?_ Padmé hadn't dated anyone in years, and she had no idea when you were supposed to start sleeping together. Should they have already started? Then again, they'd only been on four dates and hadn't even made their relationship official yet, and it had only been a little more than a month since they'd first confessed their feelings. Surely it was too soon…and yet, surely he was as eager to move past making out as she was.

Indeed, a moment later Anakin blushed and grinned in a way that was somehow both shy and mischievous. "I-I'd love to. I wanted to go further the other night too," he said, and Padmé breathed a small sigh of relief. "I'll see if my mom's around to watch Luke."

Shmi was around, so the next Saturday evening found Anakin knocking on Padmé's front door with an overnight bag in one hand and a bag of takeout in the other. (Padmé had offered to cook, but he'd just laughed and said it would probably be better for both of them if they got takeout. She didn't exactly disagree.)

Padmé kissed him in greeting, pleased that he was wearing casual clothes; she'd deliberated for a long time over what she should wear and had also settled on casual clothes…though she may or may not have made a quick shopping trip to get some lingerie that was much lacier and skimpier than the kind she normally wore.

Conversation flowed pleasantly as they ate, and Padmé did her best not to think about what was going to happen after dinner. While they had technically planned the occasion ahead of time, she still wanted it to feel as spontaneous as possible. It would be more romantic that way. After they finished eating, they moved into the living room, put on the TV, and cuddled together on the sofa.

The TV was more for background noise than anything—Padmé was barely paying attention, and she doubted Anakin was either. After about half an hour, she shifted closer to him, nestling into his side and feeling him adjust his arm to hold her more securely. Several minutes later, Anakin bent to place a soft kiss on the top of her head, and she eagerly angled her face towards him in an attempt to make him kiss her properly. He took his time, kissing her ear, her jawline, her cheek, and then finally her lips.

Padmé reached up to run her fingers through his hair and tug his head down even further, parting her lips slightly and deepening the kiss. Anakin responded enthusiastically, exploring her mouth with his tongue for a while before taking her bottom lip between his teeth and gently sucking. Moaning softly, she moved to straddle him, knees on either side of his hips, and she began kissing him more urgently as she settled herself in his lap.

The beginnings of arousal were tingling through her body now, and Padmé started rolling her hips against his, driven by some primal instinct, allowing it to take over and control her actions. Anakin pulled away from her lips with a gasped _"fuck"_ and promptly dove back in again, his mouth making contact with her neck this time. Padmé whimpered and tangled her hands in his hair as he sucked on her skin, speeding up her movements and feeling him harden underneath her.

"Ani," she moaned at a particularly aggressive bite just below her collarbone that she was sure would leave a mark.

Anakin looked back up at the sound of his name, his pupils dilating. "Padmé," he murmured, and then it was his turn to moan as Padmé nipped at his neck, repaying the favor. She adjusted her position so that his erection was directly between her legs, and they both groaned as she began rubbing herself against him. Anakin started groping her breasts through the fabric of her shirt, kneading and squeezing until she was moaning.

"Oh, God, _Ani,"_ said Padmé breathlessly, burying her face in the crook of his neck as heat pulsed low in her core, making her face flush and her knees weaken. "I—I need you. Now. Please. _Please."_

Anakin didn't say anything, but his answer was clear enough when he stood up, hands sliding down to cup her ass and keep her pressed against him. She wrapped her legs around him, still clinging to his shoulders, and another thrill of arousal shot through her as he just _carried_ her upstairs, continuing to kiss her almost the entire time. Never before had anyone wanted her so badly that they'd rather risk tripping up the stairs than move their body away from hers even for a second.

There were a few close calls, but eventually they managed to make it into Padmé's bedroom unharmed, and Anakin laid her down on the bed. He knelt over her, and Padmé watched with undisguised lust as he sat back on his heels and tugged his shirt off over his head in one swift motion. She barely had time to run her eyes appreciatively up and down his muscular torso before he was leaning back down and kissing her hungrily once more.

Anakin was pressing himself against her again, moving his hips forward and back and making them both moan. Padmé was sure she had never been so turned on in her entire life. She needed him, desperately, immediately, and she was about to say so when he suddenly broke the kiss and gave her a nervous look.

"What is it?" she asked, confused

"Nothing, it's just, I—I haven't actually done this since before Luke was born," Anakin mumbled, flushing and avoiding her eyes.

"Oh. Well, we don't have to keep going if you don't want to," Padmé said, reaching up and running her fingers through his hair in a soothing gesture. Though truth be told she hoped he wasn't actually going to change his mind because God _dammit_ she wanted him so badly.

Anakin shook his head. "No, I _do_ want to, I only meant—well, I'm probably pretty out of practice since it's been so long, so I don't want you to—to be disappointed, or—"

"Ani, I haven't done this since before Leia was born either," she interrupted. "You're the first person in nearly seven years I've trusted enough or been comfortable enough with to have sex with. You're the first person in nearly seven years I've even _wanted_ to have sex with. So we can stop if you want but if all you're worried about is disappointing me, there's no way that's going to happen, I swear to you. Plus, it's not like I'm some—some sex god myself, I'm not going to judge you if you're a little rusty because _I'm_ definitely pretty rusty too."

Anakin laughed. "It's just—I care about you so much, Padmé, and I don't want to give you a bad night. I want this to be good for you," he said, the utter earnestness on his face melting her heart. She didn't think she'd ever had such a considerate lover before; where had Anakin been all her life?

"It _will_ be good because it's you, and I care about you so much too," Padmé replied, smiling at him. "And come on, I wasn't necessarily expecting tonight to be, like, mind-blowing sex because it's the first time and the first time's never the best. But even if it isn't perfect, I won't care because it's with you, and that's all that matters to me. Actually, I _hope_ it's not perfect because if it's perfect the first time, all the times after this one will be a letdown. We have to leave room for improvement, right?"

He grinned, expression visibly relaxing. "That's an excellent point," he said, and he kissed her again.

They kissed for only another minute or two before Anakin reached for the hem of her shirt and stopped, giving her an uncertain look. Padmé nodded her permission and sat up so he could pull her shirt off, and her bra soon followed. She was momentarily self-conscious, but the open admiration and desire in Anakin's eyes eased her anxiety almost instantly.

"Padmé, you're—you're _gorgeous,"_ he breathed, and she blushed at the compliment. A moment later he leaned in and started covering her breasts with kisses, pushing her to lie down once more, and Padmé went willingly, gasping all the while.

The skin-on-skin contact was driving her crazy with want, and she whined—actually _whined_ —when he took one of her nipples between his teeth and started sucking, swirling his tongue all around. "Ani, please," Padmé begged, not even sure what exactly she wanted from him, just that she wanted _more._

After another few minutes, Anakin obligingly pulled away from her chest and hooked his fingers in the waistband of her jeans, waiting until she nodded again before unbuttoning them and sliding them off along with her panties. Now utterly naked before him and feeling even more self-conscious than she had when he'd taken off her shirt, Padmé instinctively drew her thighs together, but Anakin gently prodded them back open again, eyes raking over every inch of her body and making her face flame.

"You're beautiful," he said softly, the look in his eyes confirming the truth of his words. "You're perfect."

"Thank y— _ah!"_ Without warning, he reached out and brushed against her clit and Padmé's hips jerked uncontrollably. Looking pleased (and borderline smug), Anakin started touching her in earnest, exploring her with his fingers, using one hand to rub her clit while the other moved to trace circles around her soaked entrance. She squirmed under his ministrations, too overwhelmed by pleasure to bother being embarrassed about the needy noises she was making. "Please, Ani, please, _please!"_

Anakin gave a small chuckle and lay down on his stomach between her legs. When his warm, wet mouth suddenly enveloped her clit, Padmé made a noise that was very close to a scream. "Oh _God,"_ she cried as he started sucking, slipping two fingers inside her at the same time and tugging roughly. "Oh God, oh God, yes, yes, yes, Anakin— _Ani!"_

An intense wave of pleasure crashed into her body, and stars burst before her eyes as her climax washed over her, powerful and drawn-out. Padmé collapsed back into the pillow, breathing heavily and trembling, Anakin's name falling from her lips over and over again. When she finally came down from the high, she propped herself up on her elbows, and even in her blissed out state, her clit throbbed anew as she beheld the grin on Anakin's face, his lips sinfully red and glistening.

" _Fuck,"_ she whispered. He laughed and crawled up to kiss her, and Padmé tasted herself on his lips. She glanced down and saw that Anakin looked almost painfully hard, so she reached down towards his pants. "Can I?"

"Yes. _Please,"_ he said at once, his own hands dropping to help her fumble with the button and zipper on his jeans. Their combined efforts soon succeeded in ridding him of both his pants and boxers, and Padmé stared shamelessly at his hard cock as it sprung free. Every single inch of his body was beautiful, truly, and she felt herself overcome with the need to have him inside her.

She took him in her hand, stroking him slowly, almost lazily, and watching in delight as Anakin's eyes fluttered shut and his head fell back, a stream of curses falling from his lips. Padmé moved her other hand to join the first in its work, touching him everywhere, getting to know his body in the most intimate way possible. He was clutching at her shoulders, swearing and moaning and praising her touch. "Padmé, _fuck,_ Padmé, I—I need—please, I need you," he babbled. "I want to fuck you, please, _please."_

The vulgar bluntness of the request sent heat straight between her thighs, and Padmé let go of him, lay back down on the bed, and spread her legs wantonly, too far gone for shame. "Yes, Ani, please—please fuck me," she said. She couldn't remember ever asking that of someone so explicitly before…then again, she'd never wanted anyone as badly as she wanted Anakin right now.

He vaulted off the bed, grabbed his pants off the floor, plunged his hand into one of the pockets, and pulled out a condom. Padmé could see his hands shaking in anticipation as he tore the packet open and rolled the condom on in record time, and he was suddenly back kneeling over her again a second later.

"Are you—are you sure you want to do this?" he asked.

"Yes," Padmé said without hesitation. "Are you?"

"Completely."

And so without further ado, Anakin positioned himself at her entrance and gradually pushed inside, making both of them cry out. After a few moments, he started thrusting slowly and shallowly, almost experimentally, as if he was afraid of hurting her. "Fuck, Padmé," he gasped in her ear. "Fuck, you feel so _good."_

"More," she begged. "I'm ready, Ani. I need you. Fuck me, _please."_

He didn't need to be told twice. Anakin sped up his pace until he was pounding into her, both of them panting and moaning and gasping each other's names. Padmé felt her second climax of the night building rapidly, Anakin hard and throbbing inside her and hitting her in just the right spot, the sight of him laboring above her, flushed and sweaty, pushing her even closer to the edge. And then he reached between her legs and started rubbing her clit once more, and suddenly Padmé was giving a strangled wail and coming again, fingernails digging into his back.

Anakin gasped raggedly as her inner muscles spasmed and squeezed him, and moments later he yelled _"Fuck, Padmé!"_ as he found his own release, body shuddering underneath her touch.

He seemed like he was struggling not to collapse on top of her, so Padmé simply pulled him down instead, and the encouragement made his trembling limbs give out. She gave a small "oof" as the entirety of his weight crashed down on her, and Anakin whispered, "Sorry."

"It's okay," she said with a small chuckle. "Feels nice." Indeed, though he was rather crushing her and it should have felt uncomfortable and oppressive, it only made her feel _safe_ in some odd way, safe and cozy and content.

Several quiet minutes were spent breathing heavily, Padmé kissing his cheeks and combing her fingers through his sweaty hair. Eventually Anakin found the strength to roll off her, sliding out of her as he did so, and he got up to dispose of the condom before climbing back in bed and wrapping his arms around her. Padmé snuggled happily into his chest, feeling his heart still beating a little faster and more erratically than normal.

They lay in silence, cuddling and occasionally exchanging lazy kisses, for so long that Padmé was just about to nod off to sleep when Anakin murmured, "So."

She smiled and opened her eyes to look at him. "So."

"So…that was pretty fucking amazing."

Padmé laughed. "It was," she agreed. "Turns out you're not rusty after all."

"Mmm, that's good to know. Neither are you, by the way. Far from it. _Very_ far."

Padmé chuckled again, then looked at him hopefully. "Are you…you're definitely staying the night?"

Anakin smiled and kissed her nose. "Of course. I brought a toothbrush and everything."

"Good, otherwise I won't want to kiss you tomorrow morning."

"Well, that would—" He paused to yawn. "—would be a shame."

Padmé, too, was feeling drowsiness seeping back into her brain, so she gave him one last kiss, then closed her eyes again and mumbled, "Goodnight, Ani."

"Goodnight, Padmé." Anakin rested his chin on top of her head, and Padmé's last conscious thought was to marvel at how perfectly their bodies fit together.

She awoke the next morning still nestled in Anakin's arms. She yawned and shifted slightly, and a moment later he was pressing a loving kiss to her cheek and saying, "Good morning."

"Good morning," she replied sleepily, blinking her eyes open and smiling at him. The morning sunlight streaming in through the cracks in the curtains was hitting his hair and turning it blonder than usual, and he was gazing at her with tender affection in his eyes. It made her breath catch, and a moment later her mind was flooding with memories of the night before. Padmé blushed slightly, but she didn't feel even a hint of regret. Everything had been wonderful. Anakin had made her feel so desirable, so _loved…_ and it certainly didn't hurt that he'd physically made her feel amazing, too.

Her hands moved to cup his face and pull him in for a slow, gentle kiss, feeling his heartbeat thrumming steadily through her body as their still-bare chests pressed together. They drew apart after a long moment, and Anakin wrapped his arms around her waist once more, kissing the top of her head.

They simply lay there for a while, no words necessary to express the utter contentment they both felt in each other's arms. At last, Anakin said a little hesitantly, "So, I've been thinking. About us."

"Mmm?"

"This past month or so has been us kind of…testing the waters," he began. "To see how it worked out, us being together."

"Yes…" she said, feeling a small prickle of unease. What if—surely he wasn't going to end it, say he didn't think it _was_ working out. Right?

"Well, I—even before last night, I'd decided how I felt," said Anakin. "I mean, of course last night was _amazing—_ " He grinned, and Padmé blushed again and grinned back. "—but I don't want you to think that I _only_ came to my decision because the sex was great."

She furrowed her brow. "What do you mean?"

"I want this," he said simply. "You. Us. I want all of it. I want—Padmé, I want you to be my girlfriend, officially."

Padmé's heart skipped a beat. Anakin wanted her, wanted a serious, committed relationship with her, wanted her to be his _girlfriend._ "Officially"…that was a big deal. Up until that point, they'd only been testing the waters, as he'd said, but making their relationship _official_ would mean telling Leia and Luke, meeting each other's parents, and perhaps even moving in together somewhere down the road if they lasted that long. It was a huge commitment.

And Padmé realized that she was one hundred percent ready for it.

The nervousness cleared from Anakin's expression as she smiled broadly at him and said, "Yes. I want that, too. I want you to be my boyfriend."

He stared at her for a second, as if hardly daring to believe she meant it, and then he beamed and kissed her again. Padmé was trying to kiss him back and smile at the same time, and she rested her hands on his shoulders as he twined his through her hair.

"So," Anakin said after a moment. "What do you say we go to Kitster's for some celebratory pancakes?"

"There's nothing I'd rather do." Feeling a sudden flash of boldness, Padmé pushed him onto his back, crawled on top of him, and smirked as she saw his eyes widen. "Actually, there's _one_ thing I'd rather do. Or should I say, one _person."_


	8. Chapter 8

Despite how serious he was about Padmé, and how confident he was that she felt the same way, Anakin thought it would be best if they still waited a little while before telling Luke and Leia just in case, and Padmé agreed. They decided to tell them after school had gotten out for the summer so that the kids would have more time and attention to focus on adjusting to the news—not that kindergarten was especially stressful, but still.

In the meantime, they otherwise made no secret of their relationship, and all their friends and family were very happy for them. "I think Obi-Wan and Ahsoka were starting to lose hope of me ever finding someone," Anakin said.

Padmé chuckled. "Same with Satine and Sabé. Seriously, you should've _seen_ how excited they were when I told them."

Shmi was dying to meet Padmé, but Anakin was adamant that it wouldn't happen for a few more months. First of all, he wouldn't feel right about introducing Padmé to his mother before their kids even knew they were dating (they'd both already agreed to tackle meeting the parents after "meeting" the kids), and secondly, he didn't want to scare her off by suggesting she meet his mother so soon into their relationship.

Spring flew by, and soon it was June. Luke and Leia burst out of their classroom on the last day and started babbling excitedly to their parents that they'd been put in the same first grade class. Anakin was thrilled; though Luke had made other friends throughout the course of the year, Leia was by far his closest friend, and it would be good for them to be in the same class the next year, too. For a brief moment, he nervously wondered if they'd still be such good friends once they found out their parents were dating, but he quickly shoved the thought aside. Back in December Luke and Leia had wanted Anakin and Padmé to get _married,_ so unless they'd drastically changed their minds, surely they'd be happy about their relationship.

"Should we tell the kids soon?" Anakin asked a few nights later. Between two kids and busy schedules, it wasn't often that circumstances aligned to allow him and Padmé to spend a night together, but that only made the nights they _did_ have that much more special. On that night in particular, Obi-Wan was staying at the Skywalkers' to look after Luke and Leia was once again having a sleepover with her cousins, so Anakin and Padmé had taken _full_ advantage of the Naberries' empty house.

"Yeah, we should," said Padmé, rolling over to face him. "When?"

"I don't know. This weekend? If we can find a time when we're all around—"

"I was actually thinking maybe we should each tell them on our own," she interrupted. "I just think it might be better for Leia to hear it from me and Luke from you, and then once they've started getting used to the idea all four of us could get together sometime."

Anakin considered it for a moment before saying, "You're right, that probably _would_ be better. It would take a lot of pressure off them if their respective parent is the only one there when they first find out."

"Exactly," said Padmé, looking pleased that he'd followed her line of thinking. "But I agree that this weekend would be a good time."

Anakin nodded, then bit his lip. "How do you think they'll react? They won't—you don't think they'll be upset, do you?"

"I really hope not. I mean, they did ask Santa back in December to make us get married, so they'll probably be thrilled that we actually are dating now, right?"

"That's what I was thinking." Then Anakin laughed. "God, that was _so_ embarrassing."

"I know," Padmé said, joining in his laughter. "And the worst part is, they're probably going to think we only got together now because Santa finally interfered on their behalf. We're never going to hear the end of it."

They spent the rest of the week planning out exactly what to say to their kids, and once he'd finished cleaning up after breakfast Saturday morning, Anakin went into the living room, where Luke was currently digging through a truly horrifyingly large bin of toys. When had he gotten so many? Anakin really needed to give Shmi yet another lecture about not giving in to Luke's every whim.

Reminding himself that that was far from the matter at hand, Anakin cleared his throat and said, "Luke, would you mind leaving that for a minute? There's something I'd like to talk to you about."

Luke pouted. "But, Daddy, I want to play with my spaceships."

"I know, and I promise I won't take too long, but this is important."

The little boy sighed but obligingly stood and followed Anakin to sit on the couch. "So," Anakin began, heart racing and palms sweating a little. "You know Ms. Naberrie? Leia's mom?"

"Yeah," said Luke, fidgeting and throwing a longing glance over at the spaceships.

"And you know that she and I are very close friends?"

"Yeah."

"Well…" Anakin took a deep breath, then plunged onwards. "She's actually more than my friend now. She's my girlfriend. We're dating."

He observed his son with no small amount of anxiety, waiting for him to react. Luke's brow furrowed slightly, and it abruptly occurred to Anakin that he might not have understood. Maybe he'd be confused about girlfriend versus girl friend…But then Luke gasped and said, "You mean you and Ms. Naberrie are in _love?"_

Anakin and Padmé hadn't actually said they loved each other yet but Anakin figured he didn't need to confuse Luke with that detail, so he just said, "Yes, that's exactly what I mean. Padmé and I are in love."

"Padmé?" asked Luke, puzzled.

"Ms. Naberrie," Anakin clarified. "Padmé is her first name."

"Oh," Luke said, looking thrilled to be let it on that little secret.

Anakin reached out and took his hands. "Are you okay with it? With me dating her, I mean." Luke didn't answer for a moment, so Anakin added, "If you need time to think about how it makes you feel, that's fine. We can talk whenever you're ready."

There was a brief silence, and then, the most heartbreaking words Anakin had ever heard, spoken in an uncharacteristically small voice. "Do you love her more than me?"

"Oh, Luke, _no,_ of course not!" Anakin said at once, pulling his son into a fierce hug. "I could _never_ love anyone more than I love you. Never ever." Indeed, while he couldn't possibly quantify his love, couldn't possibly rank Luke or Padmé or Shmi or his friends by how much he loved them relative to each other, the father's love he felt for Luke was simply incomparable to any other kind of love he'd ever experienced.

To his relief, Luke smiled, seemingly soothed by the words. They were quiet for a little while longer before Luke said, "Are you and Ms. Naberrie gonna get married?"

"No!" Anakin said quickly. "No, we're not getting married. We're just dating."

Luke frowned. "But you said you're in love, and when you're in love, you get married."

"Not necessarily."

"Why not?"

"Remember what I told you a while ago about how marriage is a really big commitment and you have to be sure you're ready for it?" At Luke's nod, Anakin continued, "Well, usually you date someone for a long time before deciding you're ready to marry them. Padmé and I have only been dating for a little while, so marriage isn't on the table for us right now."

"Oh." Luke looked up at him curiously and said, "Is she gonna be my mom?"

That gave Anakin pause. The clichéd response here would be something about Padmé never being able to replace Luke's real mom, but Luke basically didn't even _have_ a real mom. Anakin remembered him previously expressing the desire for some sort of mother figure—he was probably hoping Padmé would fill that role now that she and Anakin were together. But Anakin also didn't want to put that kind of pressure on Luke and Padmé's relationship so soon. "No, she's not going to be your mom," he said slowly, "but as you get to know each other, if you eventually want to think of her as a mother figure, I'm sure she'd like that."

Luke appeared to be satisfied with that answer, and then his eyes widened as something else occurred to him. "Does Leia know?"

"Padmé's telling her today, just like I'm telling you," said Anakin. "We wanted to tell you separately so that you'd have time and space to process everything, but if you and Leia both want, we can invite them over for dinner sometime and all four of us can talk."

"Yeah!" said Luke excitedly. "I can't wait to tell Leia that our wish to Santa worked!"

"No, no, this has nothing to do with your wish to Santa," Anakin interrupted hastily. "Padmé and I got together because we wanted to, not because Santa made us."

Luke gave him a knowing look. "That's what _you_ think."

Anakin shook his head in exasperation but said nothing, figuring he'd have to let this slide for now. The "Daddy has a new girlfriend" talk was enough for one day without him throwing the "Santa isn't real" talk in there too.

Later that day, Anakin called Padmé to swap stories about how their children had reacted, and he was relieved to hear that Leia had been just as okay with everything as Luke had and that she also wanted the four of them to spend time together soon. Apparently Leia had even specifically requested that dinner be at the Skywalkers' instead of the Naberries' because Anakin's cooking was "yummy," which pleased Anakin to no end when Padmé told him.

Then he remembered what else he and Luke had talked about. "Luke asked…he asked if you were going to be his mom," Anakin said carefully.

"Oh?" Padmé's tone sounded equally careful.

"I said no, but I _did_ tell him that maybe someday he could—could think of you as a mother figure if he wanted." Anakin licked his lips nervously. "And I told him you'd like it if he did, and I—I'm sorry if I shouldn't have said that. I know I never actually asked you if you'd want to have that kind of role in his life, and I don't want to put pressure on you to—"

"It's okay," she interrupted. "I—I _do_ want that. I _would_ like to be a mother figure to Luke, if he wants. And—and I'd like you to be a father figure to Leia, if you and she both want that, too."

Anakin's breath caught in his throat. "Really? You would?"

"Yes." A slight pause, then a deep breath. "I want us to be fully involved in each other's lives, and in each other's kids' lives, because—because I love you, Anakin."

Anakin gasped slightly, feeling tears spring to his eyes. He was utterly speechless for several moments, but at last he managed to say in a rather choked-up voice, "You had to tell me that over the _phone?"_

"Sorry," said Padmé, sounding anxious. "I didn't mean to—to upset you or anything, and it's okay if you don't want to say it back, I just wanted to—"

"I love you, too," he blurted out, and then it was her turn to gasp. "I'm not upset with you for saying it, I'm upset with you for saying it over the phone because right now there is nothing in the world I'd rather do than kiss you, but I can't because we're on the damn _phone."_

Padmé laughed, and Anakin joined in. "Sorry," she repeated. "I'd been meaning to wait for a more romantic moment, but it just kind of slipped out. I'll kiss you extra hard the next time we see each other to make up for it."

"You'd better. I love you, Padmé," he said again, smiling to himself and reveling in the sound of the words. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

* * *

Over the next few days, they both talked to their kids and to each other and eventually settled on having dinner the next Saturday (at the Skywalkers', as Leia had asked). As they got out of the car and walked up to the Skywalkers' front door that evening, Leia suddenly stopped and tugged on Padmé's hand.

"What's wrong?" Padmé asked, looking down and noticing in concern that Leia seemed oddly hesitant, not at all like her usual confident and outgoing self.

"I'm scared, Mommy," she said in a whisper.

"Scared?" Padmé crouched down so that they were at eye level. "Why are you scared?"

Leia gazed anxiously back at her. "What if Mr. Skywalker doesn't like me?"

"That's not going to happen," Padmé said firmly. "Anakin already knows you, and he likes you very much. Him being my boyfriend won't change that. You have nothing to be scared of, I promise. But if you really want, we can go home and do this another time instead. I don't want to rush you into this if you don't feel ready."

The little girl bit her lip, but then she shook her head. "No, I want to stay."

"All right, then." Padmé kissed her on both cheeks and stood back up. "You know, Leia, I bet Anakin is even more nervous than you are right now."

"Really?" Leia asked, looking astonished.

"Mm-hmm. He wants you to like him just as much as you want him to like you."

That thought seemed to hearten Leia, and she took Padmé's hand again and they walked the rest of the way to the door. Anakin opened it approximately one second after Padmé rang the bell. She could tell that he was nervous, just as she'd predicted he would be, though he was doing his utmost to hide it and she doubted Leia would notice. "Hi. Come on in," he said, smiling and standing aside to let them pass.

After he'd shut the door behind them Padmé turned to kiss him, then realized that might weird Leia out, so instead she settled for a quick peck on the cheek, figuring that wouldn't be too amiss; indeed, Leia didn't have any reaction other than continuing to gaze shyly up at Anakin. He quickly crouched so that she wouldn't have to keep craning her neck—he really _was_ very tall—and said, "Hi, Leia."

"Hi, Mr. Skywalker," she said, gripping Padmé's hand tighter.

Anakin smiled at her. "You can call me Anakin if you want."

"Mommy said that, too," Leia replied, nodding. Then she glanced around. "Where's Luke?"

"He's upstairs. I told him you were going to be here soon, though." Anakin straightened up, went over to the stairs, and called up to Luke. He came down a minute or two later, and Padmé was suddenly nervous now, too.

She managed to smile anyway. "Hi, Luke."

"Hi," he mumbled, scooting closer to Anakin and looking down at the ground.

"Luke!" Leia, whose brief bout of shyness seemed to have been abruptly cured by the presence of her friend, flew across the room and threw her arms around Luke, who looked startled but hugged her back. "Can you believe our parents are in love? It's just like we always wanted!"

Padmé and Anakin both chuckled, and a tentative smile grew on Luke's face. "Yeah," he said, glancing bashfully at Padmé from over Leia's shoulder.

"I have to go finish making dinner," Anakin said. "Leia, would you like to help me?"

She let go of Luke and looked up at Anakin. "Okay," she said happily, following him into the kitchen and leaving Padmé alone with Luke.

She smiled at him again, trying to think of something to say. "Your dad told me you drew a beautiful picture of a spaceship yesterday."

Luke nodded but said nothing.

"I'd like to see it," Padmé prodded gently. "Would you mind showing it to me?"

"Okay," he said after a moment, and he led her into the kitchen. Padmé took a second to beam at the sight of Anakin showing Leia how to tear up lettuce for the salad, and then she and Luke came to a halt in front of the fridge. He took the magnet off one of the many drawings that hung there and passed the paper to Padmé.

"This is wonderful, Luke," she told him, and he smiled shyly at her. "Who are all the people in it?"

"That's Daddy," he said, pointing to the stick figure that appeared to be piloting the spaceship. "And that's me and Leia." Two smaller stick figures stood behind Anakin; one had long brown hair and appeared to be wearing a crown, and the other had bright yellow hair and was holding some kind of neon green sword.

Then Luke went into the other room, came back with a box of markers, and sat down at the kitchen table. Padmé went to sit beside him. "What are you doing?" she asked as he took the drawing back from her and uncapped a marker.

"Fixing it," he said simply. Padmé watched him, and a lump formed in her throat as she realized he was drawing a fourth stick figure on the spaceship, standing right beside Leia. Luke then grabbed a brown marker, the same color he'd used for Leia's hair, and added hair to the newcomer, swirling it around a little to make the hair look curly.

Once he'd finished, he looked up at Padmé. "Do you want to be a princess like Leia?" he asked seriously. "Or a knight like me?"

"Mommy should be a queen," Leia called from the other side of the kitchen before Padmé had a chance to respond.

"Okay," said Luke, and he added a crown to Padmé's stick figure, taking care to make it bigger and fancier-looking than Leia's crown.

"Where are we flying to in our spaceship?" Padmé said, impressed that she managed to keep her voice steady as she gazed down at the completed drawing of all four of them together. As if they were a family.

Luke shrugged. "I don't know. A galaxy far, far away, I guess." He grabbed a bright red marker and started labeling everyone. He wrote "Luke," "Leia," and "Daddy" in wobbly capital letters, then came to a halt above Padmé's stick figure and looked uncertainly at her. "How do you spell 'Ms. Naberrie'?"

"Would you like to start calling me by my first name?" Padmé offered. "It's Padmé."

Luke gaped at her. "Okay," he said after a moment, sounding excited. "How do you spell that?"

She slowly spelled it out for him, and Luke dutifully copied it down onto the drawing. Just as he finished, Leia and Anakin started bringing the food over to the table. Anakin also looked a little misty-eyed as Luke proudly showed him the final product, and he leaned down to plant a kiss on his son's cheek. "It was very nice of you to add Padmé into the drawing," Anakin told him.

Luke looked over at Padmé and smiled again, less shy now than he had been when she'd first arrived. "Leia loves her and you love her, so it felt wrong for her not to be there," he said matter-of-factly. Luke didn't say whether or not _he_ loved Padmé, but the simple fact that he'd added her into the drawing of them all—of their _family_ —answered that question well enough for her.

The rest of the evening passed quickly and comfortably. Padmé had been expecting the kids to fire off a million questions about her and Anakin's relationship and what it would mean for all of them, but they mostly just chattered on about normal, unrelated topics; Leia must have gotten all her questions out of her system for the moment, having been asking Padmé whatever popped into her head nonstop for the past week, and the same had probably happened with Luke and Anakin.

Padmé and Anakin exchanged another chaste cheek kiss as she and Leia got ready to go home. Her heart swelled when Leia spontaneously hugged Anakin, and it swelled even more when Luke hugged her, a little more hesitantly than Leia but no less sincerely. Once they were in the car and pulling out of the driveway, Padmé asked, "Did you have a good time, sweetie?"

In the rearview mirror, she saw Leia beam. "Yeah!" A few minutes later, she added softly, "I really like Mr. Sky—Anakin."

"I'm so glad," Padmé said, smiling broadly. Things were off to a very good start.


	9. Epilogue

**4 Years Later**

Padmé was having a girls' weekend away with Sabé, Satine, and several of their other friends—which was lucky, because Anakin had something he needed to talk to the kids about without her knowing. He'd been thinking about it for months and actively looking for an opportunity for weeks, and he was relieved, and also a little nervous, that the time had finally come.

"Can we be excused?" Luke asked hopefully once the three of them had finished dinner.

"Actually, I'd like you both to stay for a minute," said Anakin, making them sigh. "There's something I want to talk to you about."

Leia looked at him curiously. "What is it?"

Anakin took a deep breath, nerves increasing a hundredfold. He just needed to come out and say it. Surely they'd both be happy about the idea. He had nothing to worry about. "I want to ask Padmé to marry me," he said finally.

They both gasped. _"Really?"_ Leia demanded.

He nodded. "Yes. But before I do, I wanted to make sure both of you are okay with it."

"Of course we are!" Luke burst out, beaming. "We've been wanting you to get married _forever,_ right, Leia?"

"Yeah!" Leia was also beaming. "You've really been putting it off, though. Mom's probably wondering what's taking you so long."

Anakin huffed indignantly, and the kids snickered. "I haven't been _putting it off,_ I've just been waiting for the right time. I didn't want to rush into things, especially with your feelings to consider in addition to mine and hers."

"The four of us have been living together for three years," Luke pointed out; they'd sold their two smaller houses and moved into a bigger one the summer before Luke and Leia started second grade. "How different could it be once you're actually married?"

"Well, for one, Padmé will officially be your stepmom and I'll officially be Leia's stepdad and you two will officially be stepsiblings."

"That's basically what it's like now anyway," said Leia. She smiled at Anakin. "But I can't wait for you to _officially_ be my stepdad."

Anakin smiled back, heart swelling. He hadn't _expected_ the conversation to go badly, but still, their strong positive reactions were extremely heartening. "So you're definitely happy about us getting married? You're one hundred percent sure that it's something you want?"

"Yep!"

"Well, she has to say yes first," Luke said slyly, and Anakin made a face. Asking the kids had been nerve-racking enough; asking Padmé herself was going to be a thousand times more terrifying.

"Aw, Luke, that's mean," Leia said, though she was grinning too. "Of course she'll say yes. How are you gonna ask her, Anakin?"

"I-I'm not sure," he admitted. "I've mostly just been focusing on asking you about asking her."

Luke looked scandalized. "Dad, you have to figure out how to ask her! It has to be _perfect!"_

"Trust me, I know that. And I'm open to suggestions, if you have any."

Luke and Leia offered a number of increasingly ludicrous and over-the-top ideas, and Anakin was forced to squash a recommendation involving dolphins and hot air balloons before saying, "Okay, how about this. I'll take her out to dinner—"

"Where?" Leia interrupted.

"It should be her favorite restaurant," Luke said wisely.

"So Kitster's, then," said Leia, nodding. "Is that even open for dinner?"

"No, it closes at three, right, Dad?"

"I'll take her out to _lunch_ at Kitster's," Anakin amended. "Good idea. That'll be extra romantic, because Kitster's is where we had our first date. Well, kind of. Neither of us knew it was a date at the time, so it doesn't really count."

Luke frowned. "How did you not know it was a date? That doesn't make sense."

"It's a long story. Anyway, we'll have lunch at Kitster's, and then we'll go somewhere after, and then I'll propose."

"Go where?"

"I don't know. I'll figure it out."

"I _guess_ that sounds okay," Leia conceded. "But I still like me and Luke's ideas better."

Anakin rolled his eyes. "Then write them down somewhere and save them until you're the ones doing the proposing."

He promised to take them with him to pick out a ring the next morning (Padmé wasn't due back until the late afternoon) and swore them to secrecy. If Padmé heard about his intentions from one of their kids before he even got a chance to ask her, Anakin was going to be pissed.

* * *

Fortunately, Luke and Leia were good at keeping their lips sealed—surprisingly so, Padmé would think later when she'd heard all about it. But for the moment, she was totally unaware of what the rest of her family was plotting…although, just as Leia had predicted, she _was_ starting to get a bit antsy. She and Anakin had been dating for four and a half years and living together for three. Was he _ever_ going to propose to her? Did he even _want_ to marry her? Padmé was pretty sure he did; some of their discussions of the future over the years _had_ involved marriage, though usually in general enough terms that she was now starting to worry she'd misunderstood and Anakin didn't actually want to marry her at all. At this point, she was strongly considering just proposing to him herself.

She was surprised and pleased one day in early September when Anakin suggested they have lunch at Kitster's that weekend, just the two of them. They'd been going on dates less frequently since moving in together now that they no longer needed an excuse to see each other, but Padmé always loved the opportunity to get to spend some time alone with him outside the house every now and then, so she eagerly agreed.

Ahsoka dropped by to look after the kids for the afternoon, and Padmé and Anakin had a leisurely, delicious lunch during which they reminisced laughingly about their first sort-of-date. As they got back in the car, Padmé was expecting them to head home, but Anakin said mysteriously, "There's somewhere else I want to go."

Intriguing. Ten minutes later, Padmé's brow furrowed as she realized they were at Leia and Luke's elementary school. "Ani, what are we doing here?" she asked, hurrying to keep up with his long legs as he led her across the deserted schoolyard and came to a halt near the end of the building that housed the kindergarten classrooms.

"I think it was right about here," he said.

"What was? What are you talking about?"

"When we met," Anakin explained. "It was exactly five years ago today, right in this spot."

"It was?" Padmé said, surprised. "I can't believe you remember the exact date."

"I didn't, actually," he admitted, "but it wasn't too hard to look back at my calendar to figure out when Luke and Leia's first day of kindergarten was."

She let out a small laugh. "You scrolled back five years on your calendar just to figure out what day it was? What on earth for?"

Instead of answering, Anakin reached into his pocket and pulled something out, though Padmé couldn't tell what it was. And then, to her astonishment and utter, utter joy, he got down on one knee and held the mystery object out to her, revealing it to be a small box with a ring inside.

Padmé gasped, heart flying into her throat, and tears sprung to her eyes, though she furiously blinked them back so she could see properly. She didn't want to miss even a second of this. "Padmé Amidala Naberrie," said Anakin, smiling at her with such love and happiness in his eyes, which were also swimming with tears. "On the day we met five years ago, I think I knew even then that you were going to change my life. I just had no way of knowing exactly how _much_ of an impact you'd have. I am so totally, completely, utterly in love with you. Words can't do it justice. Before I met you, I didn't even know this kind of love _existed._ Having a family with you and Luke and Leia is the best thing that's ever happened to me, and I want to finally make that family as official as it can possibly be. Padmé, will you marry me?"

"Yes!" she cried as soon as the words had left his mouth. "Yes, Ani, yes, yes, yes!" Padmé practically shoved her left hand at him, tears spilling over onto her cheeks as he took the ring out of the box and slid it onto her finger, beaming.

As soon as the ring was on, she tugged Anakin to his feet and pulled him into a bone-crushing embrace, kissing him fiercely. Objectively, it was a pretty terrible kiss, seeing as they were both smiling and crying instead of actually kissing, but neither of them could have cared less. "I love you, Ani," Padmé wept, resting her forehead against his and cupping his face in her hands and stroking his cheekbones with her thumbs. "I love you so much, I love you, I love you."

"I love you, too." Anakin looked overjoyed, happier than Padmé had ever seen him in the entire time they'd known each other, and it made her eyes well up anew. "I love you so much, Padmé. Or should I say, the future Mrs. Skywalker?" he tried.

She let out a watery laugh. "I don't know, I think I might keep my name. I wouldn't want Leia to feel left out, being the only non-Skywalker in our house."

Anakin laughed too. "I knew you'd say that. Thought it was worth a shot."

"Maybe I'll hyphenate," Padmé said thoughtfully. "Padmé Naberrie-Skywalker…I like the sound of that."

He smiled and kissed her again. "So do I."

* * *

 **9 Months Later**

"I feel like I'm going to be sick," Padmé moaned.

Sola placed a soothing hand on her shoulder. "You're going to be fine. You and Anakin love each other. Today's just the start of a new chapter of your life together."

"What if something goes wrong during the ceremony?"

"Nothing will go wrong," Jobal assured her. "You've been planning this for months, and every last detail is taken care of. Everything will be perfect."

"Besides, you look beautiful," Sola added.

Indeed, as she looked in the mirror again, Padmé's anxiety lessened a tiny bit. It was by far the most beautiful she'd ever felt in her entire life. Her wedding dress was extremely elegant, with a flowing skirt and lace sleeves that stopped just below her elbows. Her hair was in a complicated updo that had taken a very long time, but it was worth it, and the whole ensemble was topped off by a gauzy veil. Imagining the look on Anakin's face when he finally saw her made her lips curve into a small smile.

" _There's_ a smile," Jobal said approvingly, squeezing her hand and looking a bit teary. "You look so beautiful, darling. And Anakin is a wonderful man. I'm so, so happy for you."

"Thanks, Mom," said Padmé softly, and she turned to give her mother a hug as best she could without wrinkling her dress.

"Mom, it's almost time to go!"

Padmé looked over Jobal's shoulder and saw that Leia and Luke had burst into the room. Their eyes widened as she stepped away and her dress came into full view. "Wow," Leia gasped.

"You look really pretty, Padmé," Luke said, beaming.

"Thank you." Padmé enveloped them both in a hug, as well, then took their hands in her own and did her best to put on a brave face. "Now, what do you say? Should we head out?"

"Yeah!" Leia and Luke chorused excitedly, and they accompanied her downstairs, Sola and Jobal following behind.

Anakin had already left for the venue—the public gardens a few towns over, which were beautiful in June—so as not to risk him and Padmé seeing each other before the wedding, and now the coast was clear for Padmé to depart as well. Padmé's parents were accompanying her to the ceremony (Shmi had gone with Anakin) but she'd opted to have Luke and Leia walk her down the aisle instead. Sola was her maid of honor, and Sabé, Satine, and Ahsoka her bridesmaids. On Anakin's side, Obi-Wan was his best man and Kitster, Rex, and Darred his groomsmen (Anakin and Padmé had been sorely tempted to ask Kitster to cater, then decided that they ate his food way too frequently as it was and had ultimately gone with a more traditional catering company).

They'd faced a bit of a dilemma when first starting to plan the ceremony due to their different religious backgrounds. Padmé and her family were more religious than Anakin and his and so he'd been willing to do an entirely Jewish ceremony, but Padmé wouldn't have felt right about making him take part in a type of ceremony that was unfamiliar to him and emphasized religious beliefs he didn't hold. In the end they'd decided it would be simplest to keep religion out of the ceremony entirely and had selected a non-religious venue and a non-religious officiant, though they were still incorporating a few wedding traditions from both faiths. This decision had earned them some grumbles from older relatives (mostly Padmé's grandmother), but Anakin and Padmé were satisfied that it was the right thing to do and had turned a deaf ear to everyone else's opinions.

When they arrived at the gardens, Padmé exchanged tearful hugs with her parents, doing her best not to ruin her makeup by crying openly, then went to wait in a designated area that was separate from where the ceremony was being held so that none of the guests would see her as they arrived. Leia, Luke, Sola, and the bridesmaids waited with her, and they kept up a constant stream of encouragement and reassurance, but Padmé was still more nervous than she could ever remember being. Sola swore up and down it would all go away as soon as she stepped out into the aisle and saw Anakin waiting for her underneath the chuppah at the other end, and Padmé sincerely hoped that was true; the bride throwing up in the middle of the aisle would probably put a bit of a damper on the ceremony.

The ceremony began about an hour after Padmé arrived. The bridesmaids left first, and Sola gave Padmé one last careful inspection before it was time for her to also head out. "Perfect," she declared, smiling, though her eyes were suspiciously shiny. "You look gorgeous."

Padmé let out a tiny sob and threw her arms around her sister. "I love you, Sola," she said, voice muffled in Sola's shoulder.

Sola sniffled and squeezed her tighter. "Love you too, Padmé. Good luck, not that you'll need it."

They both chuckled and drew apart, and Sola gave her one last smile and left. Leia and Luke each slipped an arm through one of Padmé's, and Padmé gripped her bouquet of flowers so tightly it was a miracle the stems didn't snap. "Are you nervous?" Leia asked.

"How can you tell?" Padmé said rather sarcastically, and both kids giggled.

"Don't worry, everything will be great," Luke soothed her. "I bet Dad's gonna cry when he sees you."

"Tears of joy, hopefully." That elicited some more giggles.

After an agonizingly long couple of minutes, it was finally time. Padmé took a deep breath, walked down the path leading to the area that had been set up for the ceremony, and stepped out into the aisle.

It was just like Sola had promised.

There were dozens and dozens of people there but Padmé could only focus on one of them, and by the time she took her second step, all of her nerves had completely vanished. Even from her distance away, she could see that Anakin's lips were parted and his eyes wide as he looked at her, and a broad smile spread across her face, her eyes filling with tears. Anakin smiled back, looking so handsome and perfect, and it was all Padmé could do to keep her pace slow and steady rather than just sprinting the rest of the way down the aisle and throwing herself into his arms.

She could barely even hear the music, could barely even feel Leia and Luke holding onto her, could barely even sense anything at all other than Anakin, her Anakin, the love of her life, the man who was about to become her husband. It was like the entire rest of the world fell away as they gazed at each other, like no one else existed except for the two of them.

At last she arrived, and now she could see that there were tears in his eyes too. The kids let go of her and went to stand off to the side along with the bridesmaids and groomsmen, and Padmé moved to stand directly in front of Anakin, passing her bouquet to Sola as she did so.

Anakin reached out to take her hands. "Padmé, you look—" he began, voice wobbling and soft enough for only her to hear. "You look so—so—" He broke off and shook his head, as if he couldn't even put it into words.

She beamed and squeezed his hands. "So do you," she whispered, and he let out a watery chuckle.

Afterwards, Padmé was very glad that they had a recording of the ceremony because she was sure she never would've been able to remember exactly what was said without it, so occupied was she with gazing into Anakin's eyes and thinking in amazement that they were about to become a married couple. They exchanged vows and then rings, and finally the officiant was pronouncing them husband and wife.

Padmé leaned up and Anakin leaned down, and their lips met in the middle. Vaguely, Padmé could hear applause and cheers, but everything going on in the background utterly paled in comparison to the sensation of her and Anakin sharing their first kiss as husband and wife. When they finally drew apart, Anakin's smile was so bright it ought to have been illegal, and Padmé was sure she looked the same.

Anakin moved slightly to the side where a wineglass was lying on the ground covered in a cloth, and then he raised his foot and stomped down hard on the glass, shattering it. _"Mazel tov!"_ all the guests shouted. Padmé laughed and wrapped her arms around him again; he returned the embrace and they stood there holding each other for a few seconds.

"I love you," Padmé said, wishing that the three little words weren't so insufficient at conveying the overwhelming euphoria and adoration she was feeling in that moment.

But Anakin rested his forehead against hers and smiled tearfully at her and said, "I love you too," and she knew he understood.

Then Luke and Leia ran over and hurled themselves into their parents' arms and the four of them dissolved into a tangled, crying, laughing mass, effectively ruining the formality of the ceremony—though if the laughter and "awww"s that followed were anything to go by, none of the guests minded.

"Congratulations, Dad!" said Luke as hugs and kisses were exchanged all around. He looked over at Padmé and smiled. "Congratulations…Mom."

Her breath caught in her throat, and she reached out and pulled him into her arms, overcome with emotion. "You don't have to call me Mom if you don't want to," Padmé said, voice breaking slightly.

"I know, and I probably won't 'cause I've called you Padmé for so long." Luke drew back and looked at her earnestly. "But, for the record, I've thought of you as my mom since I was six."

Then, finally, Padmé actually did start to cry, and she hugged him tighter and showered his face with kisses. "I think of you as my son, Luke," she wept. "I always have." Luke was crying too now, and judging by the sniffling noises coming from where Anakin and Leia stood hugging, they were having a similar conversation.

Eventually Luke and Leia moved away again, and Anakin pulled Padmé in for another kiss. Then she felt his arms tighten around her waist and she broke away to say, "Don't you dare pick me up."

He grinned. "I'm picking you up."

"No! Ani!" But it was too late, because Anakin was scooping her up into his arms and carrying her bridal-style back down the aisle, and Padmé figured that being a literal bride was as good a time as any to be carried bridal-style, so she just laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck and tugged his head down and kissed him again.

* * *

 **I've literally never been to any wedding in my entire life, whether Jewish or Christian or interfaith or non-religious or any other kind, so I hope the wedding scene was okay since I was just going off of wedding planning websites for my information lmfao anyway thanks so much for reading! And hoooopefully I'm gonna be starting another fic pretty soon (quite a long one this time :O) so keep an eye out :)**


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